Space Fury (revision C) - MAME machine

Arcade Video game published 43 years ago:

Space Fury © 1981 Sega.

This game is a rather simple alien blasting shoot-em-up. It uses almost industry standard vector controls, which are four buttons, Left Rotate, Right Rotate, Thrust, and Fire. You begin the game in the center of four strange looking shapes. These shapes are both level selects and upgrades. Run into one of them and it will add itself to your ship, and then you get to do the level associated with it. Each level is different mainly because you have wildly different shot patterns on each one. But all of them are the same when it comes to your objective. What you have to do is blast all the spaceship parts before they can form into dangerous enemy spaceships. Blast them all, and you get to select a new level and watch a little interlude where the alien taunts you with his evil computer voice.

PLAY INSTRUCTIONS:

• Enemy ships will be formed by four craft coming together.
• Only complete enemy ships can launch fireballs.
• Partial enemy ships will try to ram the player ship.
• Between rounds the player ship can dock for more firepower.
• To dock destroy enemy fleet before reinforcements arrive.

TECHNICAL
Sega G80 vector system

Main CPU: Zilog Z80 (@ 4 Mhz), I8035 (@ 208 Khz)
Sound Chips: Discrete circuitry, SP0250 (@ 3.12 Mhz)

Screen orientation: Horizontal
Video resolution: 224 x 256 pixels
Screen refresh: 40.00 Hz
Palette colors: 256

Players: 2
Buttons: 4 (LEFT, RIGHT, THRUST, FIRE)

TRIVIA
Space Fury was released in July 1981 and was the first color vector graphic games. The most notable thing about that hardware platform is that the monitors would often catch on fire. You could lower the chance of this game catching fire by installing a monitor cooling fan and removing the back door.

Space Fury shipped in the Sega 'convert-a-cab', which was an attractive, but hopelessly generic arcade cabinet with woodgrain sides, and no sideart. Lots of different games came in this cabinet, it wasn't just for Space Fury. The rest of the decorations on this game looked rather amateur. The alien head and logo displayed on the marquee could have easily come out of any 8th grade art class.

Quotes:

• Attract mode:

"Is there no warrior mightier than I?"
"Does anyone dare challenge my imperial fleet?"

• Gameplay:

"So, a creature for my amusement. Prepare for battle!"
"So, you defeated my scouts. Well, my cruisers will destroy you."
"You are starting to annoy me, creature. My destroyers will annihilate you."
"You survived! Warships! Dispose of this annoyance at once."
"Well done. Prepare to battle my entire fleet!"

A sample of the synthesized taunt, 'Prepare for battle!', was used by musical group The Crüxshadows in their song 'Winterborn'.

SCORING
Scoring in this game is kind of hard since the way points are calculated is based on how many segments an alien fighter has. It is also based on what level you are on in the game. After level four, the scores remain at the level four amounts.

LEVEL 1
Alien Segment: 10 points
Incomplete Alien: 40 points
Complete Alien: 20 points
Fireball: 30 points

LEVEL 2
Alien Segment: 20 points
Incomplete Alien: 80 points
Complete Alien: 40 points
Fireball: 60 points

LEVEL 3
Alien Segment: 30 points
Incomplete Alien: 150 points
Complete Alien: 80 points
Fireball: 100 points

LEVEL 4
Alien Segment: 40 points
Incomplete Alien: 300 points
Complete Alien: 150 points
Fireball: 200 points

In addition, you get a docking bonus when you connect to your shell. This bonus is whatever you had left out of 5,000 points when you started the level.

TIPS AND TRICKS

• When you start the game, your fighter will be in the middle of the screen. Alien segments will start from the sides and head toward each other to form up. If you have ever played "Asteroids", this game works in a similar manner with the way the thrust works. If you haven't, learn how to tap versus hold down your thrust. This will give you better control over your fighter.
• You will have a maximum of 50 seconds to complete a level. Your goal, though, is to complete it in less time. The faster you take out the aliens, the higher your bonus will be when you get to the docking bonus area.
• Learn the characteristics of the alien spaceships:

a) Only complete alien spaceships can shoot fireballs. These fireballs do not track your fighter so you can either destroy them or move out of their way.
b) Incomplete alien spaceships will attempt to ram your fighter. They do track so you must destroy them before they destroy you.

• All things can 'wrap-around' the screen. This means anything exiting the screen from one of the edges will reappear at the opposite edge. Keep this in mind when you are being pursued and/or fired upon. This also holds true when you are firing.
• After level four, the aliens will be a mix of the four levels you already went through. The action will be faster paced and you won't be able to sit still or you make yourself an easy target.
• After you complete a level (until level four), you will be given the chance to dock your fighter with a shell. This shell is an upgrade to your weapons system. You will have anywhere from 3 to 11 seconds to successfully dock:

1) Docking is real easy, just turn and thrust at the right and left shells or thrust into the top shell.
2) The shells capabilities are (from left to right):
a) The left shell is dark blue. It fires two shots in addition to the one shot the regular fighter fires.
b) The top shell is green. It fires one shot from each side of your fighter.
c) The right shell is light blue. It fires two shots behind your fighter (in addition to your one shot in front).
3) After you successfully dock, you collect the remaining bonus.

• To avoid the headache of too many things trying to get you, try to shoot the alien segments before they form up. This will prevent them from becoming complete and launching fireballs at you.
• The incomplete alien spaceships are the most dangerous since they track your fighter.
• The best shell to have is the dark blue one since it will be easier to take out targets in front of you then behind you. To make sure you end up with the dark blue shell, pick out the other two on the first two levels.
• In the early levels, try to go for the bonus since the alien spaceships aren't worth many points. When the pace picks up in the later levels, you will accumulate more points for the aliens. Plus, you probably will never see the bonus because all of your time will be spent defending against the alien attacks.

PORTS

• CONSOLES:

[AU] Colecovision (1983)
[US] Colecovision (1983) "Space Fury [Model 2415]"

• HANDHELDS:

[US] Sony PSP (nov.16, 2006) "Sega Genesis Collection [Model ULUS-10192]": as an unlockable extra
[EU] Sony PSP (feb.2, 2007) "Sega Mega Drive Collection [Model ULES-00556]": as an unlockable extra
[AU] Sony PSP (feb.8, 2007) "Sega Mega Drive Collection [Model ULES-00556]": as an unlockable extra

CONTRIBUTE
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