Star Raiders

Star Raiders is a space combat simulator set during a galactic war between the Atarian Federation and the Zylon Empire. The player assumes the role of the captain of the Elite Atarian Starship fleet, fighting the Zylons before they eliminate humanity. To win, the player must destroy the Zylon ships before they destroy the Atarian ship and before their own ship runs out of energy.

Star Raiders is controlled using both a keyboard and a joystick. It is primarily experienced from a first-person, 3D cockpit view and larger, 2D map overviews for long-distance travel. The player can control the speed of travel in space, and the angle of display (rear and front-views), and engage a mini-display called the Attack Computer Display that displays the coordinates of enemy ships and other targets. In action sequences, the player will sometimes avoid or destroy asteroids before they damage their starship, while battling enemy ships using photon torpedoes. In this mode, the control panel displays the player's velocity, energy, number of kills, and remaining targets; Energy is consumed by traversing space, using shields, and firing photon torpedoes; energy can be restored by matching coordinates with a friendly starbase.

Doug Neubauer worked as an electrical engineer before creating Star Raiders. While working at National Semiconductor, Neubauer programmed scenes with star backgrounds.

National canceled its home computer projects, leading Neubauer to move to Atari, where design manager Richard Simone hired him. Neubauer became a key figure in the development of the POKEY sound chip, used in the Atari 400 and 800 computers. Using the sound chip he created, Neubauer tried to emulate the sound effects from Star Trek, such as explosions, engines, and photon torpedoes.

By October 1982, the Atari 2600 port of Star Raiders was among the sixth-best-selling console releases and continued to be a top-ten release in November.

Star Raiders received positive reviews from various computer publications such as InfoWorld, Softline, and Byte. Joretta Klepfer of Compute! did not find the game intuitive, but noted that it was both exciting to play and watch, praising the 3D gameplay, use of color and sound. Jerry Pournelle reported that at the West Coast Computer Faire and National Computer Conference, "the most popular exhibit was Atari's ... boy did they stand in line for Star Raiders".

Star Raiders prompted several clones following its release. These include Phaser Patrol, Starmaster, Space Spartans, Sentinel, and Codename MAT.

Schofield stated in 1986 Codename Mat and Sentinel were the better attempts. Phil Garson of Electronic Fun with Computers & Games said in 1982 review of Star Raiders that while there were many similar games on the market, "none has come close to the original."