How to play Suicide Mission online
- Rotate your submarine: left and right arrow keys
- Thrust forward: up arrow key
- Switch on your screens (shield): down arrow key
- Fire penicillin torpedoes: Space bar
- Choose the number of players and Easy, Medium or Hard: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Start the game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Single torpedoes or salvoes: F4 toggles the Player 1 difficulty switch (F9 for Player 2). A gives single torpedoes, B gives salvoes.
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
The screen is full of drifting virus colonies. A hit splits a colony into smaller sub-colonies, a second hit breaks those into small crawling viruses, and a third hit finishes them. Most of the viruses simply float along attacking the patient’s cells, but some come straight for your submarine. Clear them all and the next wave begins.
Your screens protect you, but only for a few seconds at a time. Keep them on too long and they overheat, destroying every virus on the screen and your submarine along with them. Let them cool down between uses. On Medium the screens heat up faster, and on Hard a current keeps your submarine drifting all the time.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Viral colony | 30 |
| Sub-colony | 60 |
| Creepy crawling virus | 100 |
| Deadly little virus | 150 |
You earn bonus submarines as your score grows. On Easy you get one every 20,000 points.
Tips
- Don’t split everything at once. Each hit makes more, smaller and faster targets. Break one colony down completely before you start on the next.
- Use the screens in short bursts. Tap them on when something is about to hit you, then let them cool.
- Try salvoes first. Difficulty B fills the screen with torpedoes, which makes the small viruses easier to catch.
The story behind Suicide Mission
According to the prototype archive AtariProtos, Suicide Mission began life in 1981 as Meteoroid, a close copy of the arcade game Asteroids that used a display technique developed by Bob Whitehead. When Atari learned of it and threatened legal action, Starpath swapped the rocks for viruses and gave the game a medical story; the shapes of the enemies were about the only thing that changed. A Meteoroid prototype was later included on the second release of the Stella Gets a New Brain CD of Supercharger games.
Similar games to play next
- Asteroids – Atari’s own 2600 version of the arcade game Suicide Mission is based on
- Fantastic Voyage – another miniature submarine trip through the human body
- Phaser Patrol – Starpath’s first Supercharger game, a space combat simulator
- Communist Mutants from Space – a Supercharger shooter also programmed by Stephen Landrum