PixlBit

1979 still saw the Atari 2600 unchallenged but Mattel was test marketing the Intellivision which was soon to give it a run for its money. I played Adventure and Superman that year on the 2600. The arcades saw the releases of Asteroids, Galaxian and Lunar Lander, three pieces of an only partially complete killer arcade along with Space Invaders. On PC Richard Garriott made role-playing game Akalabeth, but you probably had to be in California to know of it (I believe there is a version for phones right now I'd like to try). And Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in a year full of great films, however, this is the only one I can reliably remember having seen in the theater. The rest I would see via VHS rentals soon after.

So what to play. . . All those mentioned I've played except for Akalabeth and I don't have a device to play that on yet, but not too long ago, I came across Taito's follow-up to Space Invaders, Lunar Rescue. I played this first on Taito Legends 2 for PS2 and totally loved it. Then I picked up Taito Legends Power Up for PSP and that's where I played it for this nostalgic vacation.

The game plays fine on the PSP but it's very small on that screen. I wish there was an option to tilt it vertically to give it more screen space. Stretching it could be an option too like I've seen in other retro collections on PSP - anything to make the screen bigger. Those red asteroids at the bottom are really hard to see.

The game is very simple yet more complex than Space Invaders. You start at the top in the mother ship and drop down into a field of asteroids. You have thrusters to control your descent and avoid the rocks to land on pads of different size and point value. Then a person runs to your ship and you take off. The screen is then filled with space ships that shoot at you and you can shoot back. You can also use thrust to speed up but you have a limited fuel supply. Make it to the mother ship with your rescued person and you gain points. Make it past the space ships but fail to enter the mother ship, and the rescued person plummets back to the ground (I think that part of the game should take a lot longer since gravity on the moon is 1/6 that of Earth, but now I'm niggling). Clear all the landing pads and you start a new harder screen and gain more points. At times during ascent, a meteor will streak across the screen and you have to avoid it as well as the space ships.

The sounds are ripped right from Space Invaders. The only one that annoys me is the beeping sound you hear as you descend. I got an annoyed yell from my roommate one morning because of that.

My high score was a meager 3500 which I think was caused by the tiny screen, making it difficult to see all the asteroids.

I love Lunar Rescue because you play two games-in-one, Lunar Lander on the way down, and Space Invaders on the way up; and there's something satisfying about rescuing people from the surface of the moon. That place is worse than a desert.