How to play Gas Hog online
- Jump: up arrow
- Speed up or slow down: left and right arrow keys
- Fire the laser cannon / start the game: Space bar
- Return to the demo: F11 (Select) or F12 (Reset)
- Pause: F2 (the Colour/Black-and-white switch; set it to black and white to pause)
Gas Hog is a one-player game.
Gameplay
The landscape has two levels. On the top level you drive forward to the right, jumping over enemy ships and holes in the ground, and shooting the ships that try to ram you. Point values also appear on the screen. Drive into them to collect them, but don’t shoot them: shooting a point value takes those points off your score.
Your fuel runs down all the time. When it gets low, a warning sound plays and the progress bar at the bottom of the screen flashes blue and red. The only fuel modules are on the lower level, which you reach by falling through a hole. Down there your GasHog turns around and can only drive back towards the start, so you can score points only while driving forward on the top level. You can jump back up through a hole to return to the top.
You start with four ships and lose one if you run out of fuel, collide with an enemy ship or are hit by a saucer’s bomb. The bar at the bottom shows how far you have got, and the further right you go, the more bombs and obstacles you face.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Enemy ship | 50 |
| Flying saucer | 30 |
| Point value on screen | its value when you drive into it (subtracted if you shoot it) |
Tips
- Stay on top as long as you can. Points and progress only count on the top level, so don’t fall into a hole unless you need fuel.
- Go down before the alarm gets urgent. The trip to a fuel module and back costs time and distance, so start it when the warning first sounds.
- Hold your fire near point values. A stray laser shot turns a bonus into a penalty.
- Watch the sky. Bombs are one of the three ways to lose a ship, and they get more frequent as you advance.
History
SpectraVision was the original name of the American company Spectravideo, which changed its name in late 1982 because of a clash with a hotel TV service. The game is listed under Spectravision, but the Gas Hog manual already carries the Spectravideo name. The manual is bilingual, in English and French. According to AtariAge, the game seems to have been sold mainly in Canada, so the North American cartridge is very rare in the USA, while the PAL version is much easier to find.
