Moon Patrol

In 1982 the classic arcade gam Moon Patrol was released to the public. It was developed and designed Irem and was licensed for U. S. distribution to Williams. The player in the game controls a moon vehicle that travels over the moon’s surface. The player will view the side view of the vehicle. There will be obstacles such as craters and mines which have to be avoided. The vehicle will be attacked by UFOs from the sky and also from tanks on the surface of the moon. This game was one of the first games to show the object from the side and the first game to have parallax scrolling.

The player will be the Luna City Police Officer who is assigned to Sector Nine which is the home of the toughest guys in the galaxy. At the top of the screen will be a map of the course and is a time line style map. There will also be three indicator lights, the top one indicates enemy aerial attacks, the second one indicates upcoming minefield, and the last one indicates enemies coming up from behind. The map shows five different checkpoints which are labeled E, J, O, T, and Z. The time spent between each checkpoint determines the amount of bonus points that will be awarded to the player.

There is also a bootleg version of the Moon Patrol game and it is called Moon Ranger. There is also another game which is an unlicensed NES game by the same name and is developed by Bunch Games.

There are many video games on the market by many different companies. The video game world is a multi-million dollar enterprise and there are companies that clone the real games and sell them t the public so they can get a piece of the pie. Evidently those who do this can not come with their own ideas for a game that will catch the public’s attention. There are many different games but there is room for many more. There is no reason that there has to be bootleg or cloned games. All anyone has to do is develop their own unique idea, then get a company to work with you and manufacture and market it.

Some of the other classic arcade games besides the Moon Patrol game are Donkey Kong, Frogger, Pacman, Mario Bros., Space Invaders, Duck Hunt, Pong, Asteroids, and Star castle. There are some of these that have more than one version or series so there is a wide variety to choose from. The arcade games were the beginning of an era which does now provide Nintendo, X-Box, GameCube, GameBoy,Atari, and other game systems for the individual to purchase and enjoy.