How to play Missile Control online
- Move the aiming cursor: arrow keys
- Fire: Space bar (hold for continuous fire)
- Start a game: Space or F12 (Reset)
- Choose the starting game, 1–6: F11 (Select)
- Ships per wave: F4 (left difficulty switch)
- Pause: F2 (Colour/B-W switch)
Gameplay
Your gun sits among the cities while alien spacecraft cross the top of the screen. Every shot leaves the gun, passes through the cursor and keeps going in a straight line until it hits something. You have two jobs: stop the bombs before they reach a city, and destroy the ships that drop them. Clearing a wave moves you on to the next of the six parts.
- Game 1: slow bombs, no force field
- Games 2–3: slow, then medium bombs; blast a gap in the force field and shoot through before it is repaired
- Games 4–6: medium, high and highest bomb speed; the force field cannot be broken
In games 4 to 6 you have to use the bank shot. Friendly defence missiles rise at the left and right edges of the screen, and a shot that hits one bounces off towards the ships.
Scoring: you start with 800 points. Each ship destroyed is worth 90, and each lost city costs 200. Every four ships destroyed earn a new city, and each surviving city pays a wave-end bonus of 100 points in game 1, rising to 2,000 in game 6. After game 6 the game repeats indefinitely. It ends when your cities are gone, or earlier if losses use up your points. Games 1 and 2 have eight ships per wave and the others sixteen; with the left difficulty switch at B, every wave has eight.
Tips
- Bombs first. A lost city costs more than twice what a ship earns.
- Aim the direction, not the spot. Shots fly on past the cursor, so you only need to line it up with the target.
- Don’t start too high. Early losses in game 5 or 6 can use up your 800 starting points.
About the cartridge
Missile Control carries the serial number VG-01, and its manual was printed in Hong Kong in 1983. AtariMania also lists it as Laaser, Raketen-Angriff and Star Force, and records a hidden message. Let game 6 end, pause with the Colour/B-W switch, set the right difficulty switch to B and press fire while holding the joystick up. The initials LAV appear where the left-hand cities stood.
