Assault

The Newest Lethal Weapon From Atari Games

The player controls a futuristic tank, attacking the surface forces of an alien environment. The player's tank must obliterate 11 waves of enemy vehicles in mountain and city terrain.

1988
Namco
1 Player
Shooter, Action
Available At
BURY, BLACKPOOL

Description

What makes Assault unique is that the player's tank always points toward the top of the screen, and when the tank turns the entire playfield rotates around the tank. It can be interpreted as rotating the world rather than the tank. Assault made early use of hardware sprite scaling and may be the first game to use hardware rotation of sprites and the background.

How to Play

The player controls a futuristic tank, attacking the surface forces of an alien environment. The tank is controlled by two four-way joysticks. The standard movements, such as "forward" and "turn left", are executed in the same manner as those of other tank driving games, like Battlezone. That is, the player pushes both joysticks away for "forward", pull the left joystick towards and push the right one away for "turn left" and opposite for "turn right". But since the joysticks are four-way, two other moves are available. Pushing both joysticks away from one another causes the tank to rear up on its back end for a moment. When in this position, the player can fire a lethal nuclear blast, instead of the standard shots, fired in the normal position. Afterwards, the tank returns to its regular mode. If both joysticks are pushed right or left, the tank will roll in the chosen direction.