How to play Buck Rogers online
- Speed up: up arrow
- Drop to minimum speed: down arrow
- Steer left and right: left and right arrow keys (combine with up or down to fly at an angle)
- Fire: Space bar (hold it down for rapid fire)
- Start the game: Space bar, according to the manual; F12 (the console’s Reset switch) also restarts
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
You have five fighter ships and one enemy that really matters: the Mother Ship. Every level is made of four rounds. In the first you simply fly through a set number of electron posts. The second adds alien saucers, the third adds space hoppers, and the fourth takes you into space for the battle with the Mother Ship and its saucer escort. The Mother Ship has to be hit twice to be destroyed. Hitting any of them destroys your ship.
The real pressure comes from the clock. A time line under your score runs down from right to left and changes colour as it shrinks: green while more than half remains, yellow below half, and flashing red below a quarter. If it runs out, you lose a ship and go back to the first round of the current level. Flying faster gets you to the Mother Ship sooner and leaves more time to fight it, and destroying it refills the time line.
Each new level asks for more posts and sends more enemies at you. The first four levels need 20, 23, 28 and 33 posts. From level five the count drops back but the posts come faster and closer together,.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Alien saucer | 300 |
| Space hopper | 300 |
| Electron post | 500 |
| Mother Ship | 20,000 |
Every 50,000 points you receive an extra ship and a full time line.
Tips
- Keep the speed up. The manual notes that speed earns extra points, and time saved on the planet surface is time you get to spend on the Mother Ship.
- Steer with small taps. The ship turns very sharply, and over-steering is the most common way to fly into a post.
- Shoot saucers from behind. They are easiest to hit as they pass you from the rear.
- Learn the waves. In the Mother Ship round, enemies arrive in waves. Find the rhythm and fire at the Mother Ship in the gaps.
The story behind Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom
The arcade game came out in 1982 and borrowed the behind-the-vehicle view that Sega had used in its racing game Turbo a year earlier, turning it into a shooter. The Buck Rogers name, belonging to the long-running science fiction hero, was used under licence; the 2600 manual credits the trademark to the Dille Family Trust. Sega then released home versions for many systems, including the ColecoVision, Commodore 64, VIC-20 and Apple II as well as the 2600.
Reviewing the home versions for Ahoy! magazine, Dan Hallassey called the game “excellent and absorbing – though admittedly one-note”. According to AtariProtos, a prototype cartridge labelled “Buck Rogers Sample Only” survives, and three further Buck Rogers games were planned for the 2600 but never started.
