Genre: Fixed shooter

In a fixed shooter your gun stays near the bottom of the screen while enemies attack from above, an idea made famous by Space Invaders. It suited the Atari 2600 well, because one joystick and one fire button are all the game needs. The site has three in this category.
Demon Attack (Imagic, 1982), by Rob Fulop, sends waves of flapping demons that split in two and dive at your laser cannon on an ice planet. Threshold (Tigervision, 1982) is a conversion of an Apple II game, and it lets you fly up and down as well as sideways while waves of six alien ships attack. Millipede (Atari, 1984), the home version of the Centipede sequel, fills a mushroom field with spiders, bees, earwigs and other bugs.
Take aim at any of the shooters below, right here in your browser.

Threshold

Threshold is a space shooter that Tigervision released for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It is a conversion of Warren Schwader's 1981 Apple II game from On-Line Systems, the company later known as Sierra. Waves of six alien…

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Millipede

Millipede is the Atari 2600 version of Atari's 1982 arcade sequel to Centipede. It was released in 1984, programmed by Dave Staugas with graphics by Jerome Domurat. As in Centipede, you shoot at a segmented bug winding down…

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Demon Attack

Demon Attack is a 1982 shoot-'em-up for the Atari 2600, designed and programmed by Rob Fulop and published by Imagic. From a laser cannon on an ice planet, you shoot down waves of flapping, colourful demons that swoop,…

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