2000 · Amusement Vision · Light gun shooter · Shooter

Planet Harriers

Planet Harriers is a seated twin arcade cabinet in the Space Harrier franchise. Like its 1985 predecessor Space Harrier, Planet Harriers had the most technically advanced graphics of 2000, running on the Sega Hikaru arcade system board, which was very powerful (but very expensive) for its time.

Released: 1 September 2000
Platforms: Arcade
Genres: Light gun shooter Shooter
Developers: Amusement Vision
Publishers: —
Series: Space Harrier
Modes: Single-player
Themes: Science fiction
Country: Japan

About

Planet Harriers (Japanese: プラネットハリアーズ, Hepburn: Puranetto Hariāzu) is a 3D rail shooter arcade video game published by Sega, developed by its Amusement Vision division. It is part of the Space Harrier series. It was produced both as a sit-down twin cabinet and a stand-up single cabinet.

Keywords

rail shooter
flight
explosion
character select screen
polygonal 3d
motion blur
floating island
particle system
clouds

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game is based around a twin cabinet, which allows for two seated players to play simultaneous single-player games, or a networked two-player game. Control is through a joystick with a missile and bullet trigger, and view-change and bomb buttons on the main panel.

A player may select one of four characters: Glenn, X, Cory, or Nick. The character flies from an into-the-screen perspective, shooting oncoming enemies and missiles. In a two player game, the two characters may dock together in order to recover life.

Reception

In September 2000, IGN described Planet Harrier, running on the Sega Hikaru arcade system board, as "the unrivaled champion of videogame graphics ... there's never been as visually impressive a videogame as this", praising the long draw distance, "clean and crisp" image quality, speed of movement, large number of fast-moving objects, and "amazing" graphical style. They also praised the gameplay as "the fastest, most intense 3D shooter ever crafted". In Japan, the February 1, 2001 issue of Game Machine lists it as the eleventh most-successful dedicated arcade game of the month. A rumored GameCube port never materialized.