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Gravitar on the Atari 2600 by Atari, Inc.

Gravitar (working title Lunar Battle) is a color vector graphics arcade game released by Atari, Inc. in 1982.

General Information

Developer - Atari, Inc.

Publisher - Atari, Inc.

Release - 1982

Platform(s) - Atari 2600

Number of Players - 1-2 players alternating turns

Genre - Multidirectional shooter

Using the same "rotate-and-thrust" controls as Asteroids and Space Duel, the game was known for its high level of difficulty.

It was the first of over twenty games (including the 1983 Star Wars) Mike Hally designed and produced for Atari. The main programmer was Rich Adam and the cabinet art was designed by Brad Chaboya. Over 5,427 cabinets were produced. An Atari 2600 version, ported by Dan Hitchens, was published by Atari in 1983.

The player controls a small blue spacecraft. The game starts in a fictional solar system with several planets to explore. If the player moves his ship into a planet, he will be taken to a side-view landscape. Unlike many other shooting games, gravity plays a fair part in Gravitar: the ship will be pulled slowly to the deadly star in the overworld, and downward in the side-view levels.

The player has five buttons: two to rotate the ship left or right, one to shoot, one to activate the thruster, and one for both a tractor beam and force field. Gravitar, Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe and Space Duel all used similar 5-button controlling system.

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