Ah, I see. So Star Raiders is more of a first-person space shoot'em up, whereas Elite is a space sim. I keep making the mistake of seeing it as a primitive Elite instead of a 3D shooter. I keep wanting to think that they should be combined; either say Star Raiders is the great influence and Elite is a derivative of Star Raiders, or say Elite is the big game and Star Raiders was an influential progenitor. I guess you can't write a book like this without having to make decisions though. I was torn about several other chapters as well, such as whether Civilization and SimCity deserved their own chapters, etc. A lot depends on your lens, of course. I look at Star Raiders and think - that's a prototype of Elite. Someone who grew up playing Star Raiders would see Elite and think, "they just adapted the gameplay and took it in a new direction." Very tough stuff.

I'm sure we'll get lots of criticism along the lines of, "Mail Order Monsters stuck in the SimCity chapter? You idiots! That game deserved its own chapter, blah blah. Why Space Invaders instead of Galaga? Galaga is still being played today, but not Space Invaders." There have been many tough calls about whether to go with a "first" or "most influential" or "most successful" and so on, all throughout.

I don't even think I mentioned 3D Monster Maze in the Doom chapter. Whoops! :)

I think we covered that aspect sufficiently in Elite. I did add some hedge language to the Elite chapter in that regard. Visually, Star Raiders was still simpler (though 5 years earlier) and the scope of the game was far less ambitious from the standpoint of the go anywhere trading, mining, upgrading, star systems, etc. Star Raiders was no Sandbox and not a space trade sim.

Wii: 1345 2773 2048 1586 | PS3: ArmchairArcade
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.

They are simple "player-missile graphics" (the Atari word for sprites), but very well designed. Their vertical resolution is twice as high as the "playfield" (Atari word for the frame buffer) which makes them stick out even more. They are not only animated but IIRC their luminance is modified also by a small amount. Simple lasers suck in comparison.

My favorite moment is when they impact, though, as the particle effect of the enemy explosion never gets old!
I never really played Solaris (I actually learned of it only a handful of years ago - and it made me admire Neubauer even more) but this is the one thing Neubauer couldn't do on a VCS because of it's limited RAM.

I didn't forget that - I wanted you people to watch the videos as one has to see the game in motion (on screenshots the game looks poor) and I had already written too much - I don't want to gag you people here ;-)

The "other" best thing about it is that it uses different speeds, which is highly effective when dropping out of warp: You can immediately begin to fight enemies while you get slower and into normal cruise speed. How many games allowed for that?

You can "multitask" is in the whole game: Dock to a star base and while you wait for the shuttle you can switch to the starmap and position your warp cursor to the next sector you want to get to. When you hear the beep that the docking (repairs and refill) is complete you can instantly press the warp button ("H").
If you really want to become "Star Commander, class 1" you have to use such methods.

"Your orders: DESTROY ALL ZYLON SHIPS ON SIGHT, SHOW NO MERCY." ;-)

take care,
Calibrator

Any thoughts on Solaris? Though it had double the ROM of Star Raiders and came out much later, it was an Atari 2600 game is considered by some to have exceeded Star Raiders in most ways. It is in reality a sequel by Neubauer himself of course, but still.

Wii: 1345 2773 2048 1586 | PS3: ArmchairArcade
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.

[flexes fingers]

It did help, though, that an Apple II was no option financially ;-)

However, Star Raiders was the first cartridge I got for my venerable Atari 400 (apart from the ubiquitous Atari Basic) and every cartridge after that didn't quite reach its quality and fun level. And this includes the very good Defender adaption by Atari.

It wowed me with its 3D graphics, of course, but not only the moving stars - its fantastic explosions (for that time) where you actually can fly trough, then switch to rear sight and watch the smithereens fade into the vanishing point did it for me. It was one of the video game moments that one never forgets! If I sound like a salivating fanboy - this is what I am. Still.

Star Raiders is more of a space flight simulator than a shoot'em up! Everything is running in real time and with gorgeous sound effects - Doug Neubauer created the sound chip (POKEY) of the Atari, by the way - and simple and precise controls to steer your beast.

More things not quite common in other games?

What about docking sequences (actually a small shuttle flies from the star base to your ship and back again)? If you have seen enough "shuttle docking action" you can observe your star map, while the docking takes place!

What about having to switch on your subsystems like shields and flight computer before your ship even moves? You can also do that *while* your ship moves, which is even cooler. Every key command is confirmed with a short, what I call "professional", beep.

An enemy or comet hits your ship - how about individual and partial(!) damage to the subsystems (shield, navigational computer, phasors...) with the respective consequences. When your "subspace radio" is destroyed you don't get map updates with enemy positions anymore! When your shields fail you can get away with that but your navigational computer? Good luck with that!

How about flying to a base to get your damages repaired and energy refilled?

What about the Zylons (yep, it borrowed blatantly from Battlestar Galactica - just watch the Zylon bases!) moving their fleets on the star map, surrounding your bases and taking them - just sit there and do nothing, if you like ;-)

What about the game giving the player a rank and class instead of a simple score? The score is calculated internally and when you fail miserably you become "Galactic Cook" or "Garbage Scow Captain". Do better and you can get up to the acclaimed "Star Commander". The calculation includes the mission level, the number of you bases still alive, the number of enemies destroyed, the number of enemy bases destroyed, the time taken and the energy used (and everything! needs energy).
For Star Commander you need 272 points (class 5) and more if you want "class 1" - IIRC you cannot reach that at the beginner's level.
However, you can reach more points than the maximum 303 in manual!

All of this in only 8 kilobytes of ROM space?

Yes, but there are some negative aspects: The game has no big graphical and acoustical variety, the number of sprites is limited, you have only one weapon (photon torpedoes) and if you nail the tactics and the timing to shoot the enemy you can more or less easily get the highest rank.

But these are all tiny in comparison to what the game achieves: The complete immersion in flying a space ship to battle an enemy invasion.
A clear, uncluttered interface (it could've been built by Apple ;-), no unnecessary movie sequences - from beginning to end (the docking sequences included) you don't leave your cockpit. You *are* a space pilot in this one.

And to me it was perfectly clear at this point, that all flight simulators have to be in 3D or else they are worthless crap.

Intermission:
Another game to give me such an insight was Ultima Underworld after which I expected each action role-playing game to be in full, fluid 3D. Well, it took some years - which shows how groundbreaking UU was - but look at this type of games now.

Back to Star Raiders:

There are (of course!) some videos on youtube - watch them fullscreen!:

Here's a great one explaining the games features with a "cruel & cynical" twist at the end ;-) :
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=RgnyFRmKy1s
(the Atari 5200 version seems pretty identical to the original one for the Atari computers)

This three part video (part 2 seems to be missing) shows you the highest difficulty level and how the player has to struggle sometimes (maybe he only wants to show the different damage effects? ;-). He also demonstrates how to kill enemies quickly after jumping out of hyperspace while switched into "Aft View" - where the left-right controls are reversed!
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=WlsdNKPYw0s
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=UW7FqPM-NV8

Trivia:
Did you know that DC published a "Star Raiders Graphic Novel"?
(They also did ones for Defender, Berzerk, Star Raiders, Phoenix, and Galaxian).
http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/comics/AtariForce/logs/sr.shtml

take care,
Calibrator