How to play Planet Patrol online
- Move your ship up and down: up and down arrow keys
- Fire: Space bar
- Start the game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Choose a game (1–4): F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Second player: T and G to move, A to fire
Gameplay
Your job is to patrol the planet and destroy the enemy. Enemy ships come at you and must be shot down, but there is one ship you should never shoot: the black one. Fly into it to dock instead. Docking is what allows you to land later and refuel, and if you forget about fuel, your mission will not last long.
Each stage ends at the enemy’s three fuel depots, which you must destroy before you can go on. Straight after them comes a minefield. Your shots have no effect on the mines, so the only way through is to steer around them.
Meanwhile the sun is setting. As night falls, the screen grows dark and the enemy becomes hard to see. The manual’s own hint is to fire at random when it gets dark, because your shots light up the sky for a moment.
Game variations
- Game 1: one player, slow
- Game 2: two players, slow
- Game 3: one player, fast
- Game 4: two players, fast
Tips
- Hold your fire near the black ship. Shooting it costs you the chance to refuel.
- Line up for the minefield early. Once the last depot is gone, the mines follow at once, and you can only dodge them.
- Use your shots as a torch. At night, keep firing to light up the screen and spot what is coming.
About Spectravision
Spectravision was founded in 1981 by Harry Fox and Alex Weiss as a distributor of computer games, and it went on to make eleven games for the Atari 2600. In late 1982 it changed its name to Spectravideo because of a clash with a hotel TV service called SpectraVision. From 1983 it also built its own home computers, starting with the SV-318 and SV-328. Several of its 2600 cartridges, such as Mangia and Chase the Chuck Wagon, are now sought-after collector’s items.
Similar games to play next
- Gas Hog – another Spectravision shooter where fuel is everything
- China Syndrome – a Spectravision game about cleaning up a damaged reactor
- Vanguard – a scrolling shooter with a fuel gauge to watch
- River Raid – the best-known 2600 shooter about refuelling on the move