How to play Zaxxon online
- Steer: left and right arrows. As in an aircraft, up (push forward) dives and down (pull back) climbs.
- Fire: Z or X
- Two players: the minus key – (the keypad’s * key) on the title screen. Players take turns; player 2 uses I J K L and N or M.
- Start: Enter or a fire button. Pause: P, and P again to continue.
- Full screen, Restart and save states are in the emulator’s toolbar; move the mouse over the screen to see it.
Gameplay
Your fighter flies diagonally across the screen at a fixed speed, and all you control is where it is. The first fortress is packed with gun emplacements, radar towers, fuel tanks and force fields, with walls that can only be passed through their openings at the right height. Two things tell you how high you are: the shadow your craft casts on the ground and the altitude gauge on the left of the screen. The fuel gauge and your reserve ships are along the bottom; the tank empties steadily, and if it runs dry you crash.
Beyond the fortress wall you fly into open space, where enemy planes come at you and your fighter sinks on its own, though you can still move sideways. Reaching the second fortress gives you back control of your height; it has more walls and force fields, and at the end of it waits the Zaxxon robot. Hit it squarely five times before it launches its missile; if the missile gets away, it and its fragments can both destroy you.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Gun emplacement | 200 or 500, chosen at random |
| Enemy plane | 100, plus 50 more each round |
| Every plane in a space section | 1,000 bonus |
| Fuel tank | 300 (and your tank is refilled) |
| Radar tower | 1,000 |
| Zaxxon robot | 1,000 |
| Robot’s missile | 200 |
Tips
- Watch the shadow, not the ship. The fighter looks the same at any height, so the shadow and the gauge are the only honest guides, and they matter most just before a wall.
- Clear the sky. Shooting every plane in the space section is worth a 1,000-point bonus on top of the planes themselves.
- Five hits, fast. Start firing at the robot as soon as it appears; it has to go down before its missile launches.
The story behind Zaxxon on the 5200
Sega’s arcade Zaxxon, built with Ikegami Tsushinki, appeared in Japan at the end of 1981 and in North America in April 1982. It was one of the first games drawn in isometric projection, which is where the name comes from, and the first arcade game advertised on television. Coleco held the home licence at first: its ColecoVision cartridge from September 1982 was its best-selling stand-alone game, and its Atari 2600 version of April 1983 swapped the isometric view for a behind-the-ship one.
For the 5200, Sega took the licence back and published the game itself in August 1984, one of just four Sega cartridges for the console; AtariProtos calls it one of the rarest 5200 releases. Ron J. Fortier programmed it. The graphics were praised, but the version has a reputation for unreliable collision detection: theLogBook noted that the fighter does not change size with altitude, so players crash into fuel tanks they thought they had cleared, and AtariProtos says you can be destroyed with nothing near you. Compared with the arcade game, the ground missile silos are gone and the robot stands still while you shoot it, though parked enemy fighters can fire back.
