War of the Worlds (video game)

War of the Worlds was a monochrome vector arcade game created by Tim Skelly of Cinematronics in 1982. It is based on the H. G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds. There were two versions of this game, identical in gameplay but differing in graphics. The first version was released by Cinematronics in 1979, and featured black and white vector graphics. A color version was later made in 1982.

In terms of gameplay and graphics, and game was essentially a Space Invaders clone done using 3-D vector graphics. The player controls a tank object at the bottom of the screen and shoots towards the top of the screen at descending Tripods robots in a first person perspective. The player only has movement, cannon fire and shields to protect them from the Tripods' lasers.

The game was developed as a 3D version of Space Invaders but overcame the poor reception it received at the 1982 AMOA show. It was never put into wide production and a little less than ten actual units were made. Though different, the game was deemed too easy by some and games that are too easy do not receive much play. In addition to that the hardware was not fast enough to run the graphics at a good rate. The game experienced lags that made its control somewhat difficult and not exciting to play.

While it debuted on black and white vector monitors, the game was actually written for a color vector monitor.

The game is very rare, having been ranked a 3 out of 100 on the Nation Game Preservation Society, 100 being the most common and 1 being the rarest.

External links

• KLOV's Entry for War Of The Worlds
• Arcade History's page on War of The Worlds
• Everything2 Site about The War of the Worlds with a comment mentioning the arcade game