Lunar Rescue

On 06/25/2014 at 03:14 PM by KnightDriver

It’s 1979. Space Invaders, Asteroids and Lunar Lander rule the arcades, but what’s this tucked away in the corner? Lunar Rescue? What’s that? It looks like all those games mashed up into one game. Oh yea, this is awesome!

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This is the German flyer for Lunar Rescue.

Notice the cocktail version of the game in the

background.

Way I see it, Lunar Rescue is like playing Asteroids on the way down from the mothership, Lunar Lander in the way you navigate and land, and Space Invaders in the way you shoot ships on your way back to the mothership. Where has this game been all my life? What a great combination! It’s better than all three of those games. . . well, except maybe Lunar Lander, but that’s a favorite of mine. It also has a 2 player mode where you alternate turns.

Visually Lunar Rescue is full of primary colors. It uses Raster graphics, which is made up of pixels, like Space Invaders. Lunar Rescue was meant to be a follow up to that game and looks a little less detailed but definitely more colorful.

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Ewok says, “Lu.” Which means beautiful.

The sound is pretty minimal, limited to discreet electronic tones all taken from Space Invaders, Taito's breakout hit. Why didn’t Wendy Carlos ever do sound for a video game? She was a pioneer of electronic music. She could’ve done some groundbreaking stuff in the video game realm. Well, at least she did the music for the films Clockwork Orange and Tron.

You can find this game on the Taito Legends 2 collection for Xbox, PS2 and PC, and Taito Legends Power Up for PSP. There’s also a Home Brew version of Lunar Rescue called This Planet Sucks for Atari 2600. There are also a lot of ports for 1980’s pcs, if anyone still has one of those.

I really liked this game. It’s way more complex than any of the games it takes inspiration from.

A piece of trivia. This game is shown close-up in the film Fast Times At Ridgemont High. It appears at the 12 sec mark of this video.

1982. Dead center of the arcade scene. How many games can you spot here?

Super Step Contributing Writer

06/25/2014 at 04:57 PM

I didn't know Shmups were already that popular in 1982.

KnightDriver

06/26/2014 at 02:31 AM

I was just thinking today what you would compare today's games to in the early days. I'm thinking COD relates to the early games where you shoot things like Space Invaders. For a game like Assassin's Creed, I thought Superman on Atari 2600 would be appropriate. Both have an open world where you have to complete some mission. It's funny to me to compare such wildly different games that still have some basic concepts in common.

06/26/2014 at 02:56 AM

Yeah, today's games are much more complex than games before them, but those basic concepts will always be there the way Carbon is in every life form. Thanks Breaking Bad for allowing me to say something deep based on a Television show I'm catching up with on Netflix.

06/26/2014 at 03:28 AM

I'd like to put gameplay side by side in some sort of video. I think it'd be funny. Can you imagine shooting those Space Invader aliens in a 3D realistic world like COD. That'd be too way out.

Cary Woodham

06/25/2014 at 07:24 PM

Taito made a lot of games back then that used the Space Invaders graphics. I didn't get into Lunar Lander much, so this one didn't grab me either.

06/26/2014 at 02:50 AM

The next Taito game I liked after Space Invaders was Front Line in '82.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

06/25/2014 at 08:08 PM

damn man that game looks beautiful.

06/26/2014 at 02:54 AM

I was thinking that's maybe why it got a closeup in Fast Times at Ridgmont High because most of the others ones shown were Vector graphics games with little or no color in them.

jgusw

06/25/2014 at 08:09 PM

I hadn't play this one.

Neither had I until I played through everything in this Taito collection. I would've loved this game in the arcades back when. Never saw it though.

SanAndreas

06/26/2014 at 01:19 AM

Hey, have you covered Space Dungeon or Jungle King Hunt yet? Other than Space Invaders those were probably my most fondly remembered pre-NES Taito classics. Oh, and Zookeeper too.

06/26/2014 at 03:21 AM

Here's my Jungle Hunt blog and Zookeeper I played but didn't talk about. Both were interesting games. Space Dungeon is only on the Taito Legends for PSP which I don't have yet. Here's the Classic Game Room review of the Atari 5200 version I just watched. I can't wait to get the PSP version and give it a spin.

06/26/2014 at 11:52 PM

I'll be damned, I even put a comment on it. My memory sucks ass.

06/27/2014 at 01:49 AM

Reading those comments was actually kinda fun. I want to get Siri to read them all back to me while I drive. You get serious stuff, then trolling, then comments about the trolling, then random insults, then requests for reviews. It would sound funny alltogether like it was one big conversation in a room full of people.

NSonic79

07/08/2014 at 12:26 PM

Why can't we have those kinds of arcades like so long ago right now! =(

Never heard of thsi game, but since it was released on the year I was born that shouldn't come as a shock to me. Still want my arcade back.

07/08/2014 at 02:21 PM

I still want to make the pilgrimage to Funspot in N.H. and the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. One day.

C.S.3590SquadLeader

07/11/2014 at 10:50 AM

What a neat looking game.

07/11/2014 at 01:46 PM

I love that it's like three games in one. It's much more interesting than a lot of the games out at the time.

PixlBit