How to play Earth Attack online
- Fly your ship: arrow keys, in any direction
- Fire the laser: Space bar
- Smart bomb: fly down below the city skyline, then press Space
- Hyperspace: fly up to the very top of the screen, then press Space
- Start a new game: F12 (the consoleās Reset switch)
- Choose a game variation: F11 (the consoleās Select switch)
- Change how fast the ship climbs and dives: F4 (Player 1 difficulty)
Gameplay
You patrol the skies over a city where five humanoids live. Landers swoop down to grab them, and a humanoid they carry off is turned into a fast, aggressive Mutant. Shoot the Lander and catch the falling humanoid for bonus points, while also dealing with Baiters, Bombers that lay mines, and Pods that burst into Swarmers. You start with three ships and three smart bombs, and earn another of each every 10,000 points. Because the 2600 joystick has only one button, the height of your ship decides what the button does, which is the main thing to learn in this version.
About the Zellers release
In the 1980s Zellers carried a range of Taiwanese 2600 cartridges that were renamed copies of games from other companies. The AtariAge collector database rates the Earth Attack cartridge as rare and lists no manual for it, so the rules above come from Atariās Defender manual. For the full scoring table, the game variations and the history of the port, see the Defender page.
