How to play Espial online
- Fly your fighter in eight directions: arrow keys
- Fire the laser and the missiles: Space bar
- Start the game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
Gameplay
Your target is the starship itself, but it does not make things easy. Enemy fighters and bombs fly at you, and the ship’s surface is armed with cannons, fortresses and diamond-shaped cells that open up and release bombs. Each press of the button sends out your laser and a pair of missiles at the same moment. The laser hits flying enemies and surface targets alike. The missiles come down at a cross-shaped sight that sits a short way ahead of your fighter, so you aim them by lining that sight up with a target on the hull.
The starship is made up of three kinds of base: a Block Base with cannons and a fortress, a Fantasy Base covered in cells, and a Diamond Base with only diamonds on it. When you get past a base, a short tune plays and the next one begins. You start with five fighters, and the game is over when the last one is destroyed. Your score and remaining fighters are shown at the bottom of the screen.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Flying enemies | 20–80 |
| Diamond | 90 |
| Fortress, cannon or cell | 200 |
Tips
- Watch the sight, not the fighter. Your missiles land where the cross is, so put it on the ground target and keep firing.
- Go for the 200-point targets. Fortresses, cannons and cells are worth far more than the flying enemies.
- Hit cells early. They release bombs once fully opened, so shoot them before that happens.
- Shoot the bombs too. Your laser can destroy bombs as well as enemy craft, so keep firing when the screen fills up.
History
The Espial arcade machine was a vertical shooter with an eight-way joystick and two buttons, one to fire and one for bombs. The Killer List of Videogames describes it as a Xevious clone, a fair summary of its mix of air and ground targets. Tigervision, which also brought Orca’s River Patrol to the 2600, squeezed both weapons onto the single joystick button. The game was also adapted for the Atari 8-bit computers. The 2600 cartridge is hard to find today: AtariAge rates it Rare+.
Similar games to play next
- Xevious – Atari’s unreleased 2600 version of the arcade shooter Espial is compared to
- River Patrol – another Orca arcade game brought to the 2600 by Tigervision
- Threshold – a Tigervision space shooter that lets you fly in all directions
- Polaris – a Tigervision shooter based on a Taito arcade game