Sticking with Activision again.
River Raid was developed by Carol Shaw, one of the first female game designers. It was developed for the Atari 2600 and later ported to the Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit computers, Intellivision, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and even the MSX!
And it's totally awesome.
Shooters were common before 1982 but most were "fixed shooters" - single screen games where you can move back and forth on an X-axis (ie: Space Invaders). Others, like Defender and Scramble, had horizontal scrolling. River Raid, on the other hand, is one of the earliest examples of a vertical shooter with a scrolling screen. That said, this isn't the same sort of vertical scrolling seen in Xevious (and beyond). You're still restricted to horizontal movement on the bottom of the screen, and pushing the joystick up and down causes your fighter plane to accelerate and decelerate, respectively. In other words, the screen will move faster or slower as you push/pull. All the while the screen scrolls below displaying a river landscape with varied green terrain.
Enemies are abound, but unlike your jet they are unable to fire projectiles. Instead they, along with the green terrain, will deduct a life if crashed into. Ships and helicopters are restricted to the water and move in a horizontal pattern. They're generally easy to shoot or avoid. The most dangerous enemies are the drones that Barack Obama fires at you from offscreen. Veer too far to the right or left and it becomes quite challenging to dodge one when it emerges. Bridges also appear periodically and the must be shot down lest you desire a blown-up jet.
Fuel management is crucial. Tanks are littered throughout the river and they become more scarce as you continue flying. Shooting a tank causes it to vanish, so firing haphazardly is generally a poor idea. In an interesting twist, shooting a fuel tank will also net you points, so it's actually a smart idea to shoot one down instead of collecting it if your gauge is already almost or totally full.
This is a "points-based" game. It essentially consists of one long level that never ends, so the goal is to rack up as many points as possible. An Activision expert named Jordy told me I can use the
badge criteria to determine when the game was "beaten." Here it's 15,000 points. I went well beyond that. Technically you can roll over the point gauge, at a score of one million, but that's completely insane and would require several hours of perfect precise play.
River Raid is fun as hell. Controls are perfectly fluid and the game is an intense palm-sweating experience. Absolutely fantastic; one of the best of the Atari era. And since it's Activision you can find it on any number of their Anthology compilations. Anyone interested in the history of shmups, or video games in general, can't afford to pass this one up.
Next up: a game with an actual ending!!! (well, assuming I can beat it and don't have to switch to something else

)