Omega Race, a shoot ’em up arcade game developed by Ron Haliburton and released by Midway in 1981, was later adapted for the Atari 2600 by CBS Electronics. Unique among CBS’s Atari 2600 games, Omega Race includes an extra 256 bytes of RAM in each cartridge, a feature marketed as “RAM Plus.” Set in 2003, players pilot an Omegan Fighter spacecraft to eliminate enemy droid ships within a rectangular “track.”
The player’s ship is controlled using a spinner for rotation, a button for thrust, and another button for firing lasers. Players must destroy or evade various enemies, including drone ships, commander ships, two types of space mines, and shooting star ships. The ship ricochets off invisible barriers at the screen’s edges, which briefly become visible upon impact. By default, additional ships are awarded at 40,000 and 100,000 points.