Ludography
60/100
Players5 ratings
80/100
Critics1 review
Astro Fighter cover

1979 · Data East · Arcade · Shoot 'em up

Astro Fighter

Atari console exclusive

The game of Astro Fighter consists of 4 waves and a refueling stage, which are then repeated with increasingly higher difficulty. The player's task is to eliminate the four successive waves of different types of attacking craft, while avoiding being hit by missiles and bombs, and then refuel by shooting the 'GS' ship before repeating the process. The player starts with 3 lives and receives a bonus life on reaching a score of 5000. 300 bonus points are received for shooting each 6 falling bombs and for 950 for hitting the GS ship accurately on the first shot.

Released
1979
Platforms
ArcadeAtari 7800
Genres
ArcadeShoot 'em upShooter
Developers
Data East
Publishers
Data East
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Third person
Themes
ActionScience fiction
Country
Japan

About

Astro Fighter (Japanese: アストロファイター, Hepburn: Asutoro Faitā) is a shoot 'em up game released for arcades in 1979. The cabinet was released in three different styles: upright/standard, cocktail, and cabaret. It was developed and distributed by Data East in Japan and was distributed in North America by Sega/Gremlin.

Keywords

  • shoot 'em up

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Astro Fighter consists of four waves of enemy craft flying from the top of the screen toward the bottom, and a refuelling stage, which are then repeated with increasingly higher difficulty. The player's task is to eliminate the four successive waves of different types of attacking craft, while avoiding being hit by missiles and bombs, and then refuel by shooting the 'GS' ship before repeating the process. DIP switch settings on the CPU board allow the user/operator to define gameplay options. Depending on these settings the player may start with 3, 4, 5, or 6 lives.

The switches also define when a bonus life is awarded. This can be either none (no bonuses awarded), or when the player reaches a score of either 5000, 7000, or 10000. 300 bonus points are received for shooting each 6 falling bombs and for 950 bonus points are awarded for hitting the GS ship accurately on the first shot. A bonus of 10,000 points is given for getting through 4 waves and refuelling by using exactly 2 shots more than the minimum needed.

Reception

In North America, it was the fourth top-grossing video game on the Play Meter arcade charts from September to October 1980. Play Meter later listed it as the fourth highest-grossing arcade video game of the year in the United States (below Asteroids, Galaxian and Space Invaders).

In a 2007 retrospective review, Chris Wilkins of Eurogamer rated the game 8 out of 10, with praise towards the level design, boss battles and difficulty level.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Arcade1 October 1979Japan

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Collections1 collection

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.