How to play Marauder online
- Move in eight directions: arrow keys (combine two for diagonals)
- Fire in the direction you face: Space bar
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Choose robot speed (game 1–4): F11 (the console’s Select switch)
Gameplay
The base has six rooms, each holding four robots that hunt you and shoot from every angle. Robots are hidden whenever a wall stands between you and them, so turning a corner can put you face to face with one. Robots you leave behind stay put, but the power center’s room refills to four guards whenever you come back.
Each robot is worth 50 points. A bonus gauge at the bottom of the screen starts at 3,200 and ticks down by 20; beeps warn you when it is nearly empty. Destroy the power center and whatever is left in the gauge goes onto your score, then the center is repaired, the gauge refills and you start again from another room. Some rooms hide a flashing suit of magic armor that, for a few seconds, stops robot bullets and lets you ram robots to destroy them.
You have three Marauders and earn another every second time you wreck the power center. The Select switch picks one of four robot speeds, from slow to extra fast. Each time you destroy the power center, the rooms fill with more robots (five, then six), and after that the next speed begins with four again, giving twelve steps of difficulty.
Tips
- Use the rapid-fire trick. Pressing fire again before your bullet hits anything calls it back and fires a new one, which gives you a fast, short-range burst.
- Take corners slowly. Since robots behind walls are invisible, pause before rounding a corner with your gun pointing the way you are going.
- Speed is points. The bonus gauge is worth far more than individual robots, so head for the power center rather than clearing every room.
History
Tigervision, a branch of the toy company Tiger, made most of its 2600 games by converting existing titles. Marauder, Threshold and Jawbreaker all came from Sierra On-Line’s computer library. Marauder reached North American shops in October 1982. The game ignores the colour/black-and-white switch and both difficulty switches, and the manual explains that its colours were picked to stay clear on a black-and-white TV.
Similar games to play next
- Berzerk – Atari’s version of the arcade game about shooting robots in a maze
- Threshold – another Sierra On-Line conversion from Tigervision, a fast space shooter
- Jawbreaker – Tigervision’s maze game from the same Sierra library
- Venture – explore rooms full of monsters in search of treasure