How to play Star Strike online
- Fly left, right, up and down: arrow keys
- Fire lasers (above the trench) or drop bombs (inside it): Space bar
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch), then push the joystick in any direction
- Game speed and enemy missiles: F4 and F9 (the two difficulty switches, see below)
Gameplay
The screen looks down the length of the trench toward a vanishing point in the middle, with the Earth at the top of the sky. Silos come over the horizon one at a time, each announced by a beeping alarm. Fly inside the trench and press fire to drop a bomb; a hit turns the silo solid. Your ship’s shadow shows the spot directly below you, and you cannot move sideways while a bomb is falling.
Alien saucers come up behind you one at a time, overtake you and open fire. A laser hit makes your ship drop, so pull up to regain height. Meteor-missiles fly in from deep space, and a hit from one scrambles your controls for a few seconds. Your own lasers always travel toward the vanishing point, and you can only hit a saucer once it has passed you and turned light blue.
You have just one ship. Crash into any part of the station and the game is over. It also ends if an unbombed silo passes you after the Earth reaches the centre of the screen. Bomb all eight silos in time and the station is destroyed.
Difficulty switches
| Left | Right | Game |
|---|---|---|
| B | B | Slow, aimed meteor-missiles |
| A | B | Medium, aimed meteor-missiles |
| B | A | Medium, slow guided meteor-missiles |
| A | A | Fast, fast guided meteor-missiles |
Aimed missiles fly in your general direction, while guided ones follow your ship. On the two hardest settings the Earth also moves toward the centre faster, so you have less time.
Tips
- Bomb low and central. Bombs fall slowly, so drop them from low altitude in the middle of the trench.
- Don’t get dragged away. The saucers try to pull you out of position. Stay near the centre of the trench.
- Count your silos. They always come in the same order. If the next one is already solid, skip the bombing run and fight the saucers instead.
History
The Intellivision original was designed by Hal Finney and Brett Stutz and became the Intellivision’s best-selling game of 1982. Mattel then brought several of its Intellivision titles to the Atari 2600 under the M Network name, and Star Strike followed in 1983, although the 2600 manual carries a 1982 copyright.
Similar games to play next
- Star Wars: The Arcade Game – the actual Death Star trench run
- Star Wars: Return of the Jedi – Death Star Battle – blow up the second Death Star in the Millennium Falcon
- Space Attack – another Intellivision space game converted by M Network
- Astroblast – M Network’s version of the Intellivision hit Astrosmash