Radar Scope
Radar Scope | |
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multiplayer (alternating turns) |
Radar Scope[a] is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Nintendo R&D2 and published by Nintendo. The player assumes the role of the Sonic Spaceport starship and must wipe out formations of an enemy race known as the Gamma Raiders before they destroy the player's space station. Gameplay is similar to Space Invaders and Galaxian, but viewed from a three-dimensional third-person perspective.
Radar Scope was a commercial failure and created a financial crisis for the subsidiary
Retrospectively, critics have praised Radar Scope for its gameplay and design being a unique iteration upon the Space Invaders template. One critic labeled it one of Nintendo's most important games because its commercial failure inadvertently led to the creation of Nintendo's mascot character and helped pave the way for the company's entry into the console video game market.
Gameplay
Radar Scope is a shoot 'em up in a three-dimensional third-person perspective over a gradient-blue background,[5] often described as a cross between Galaxian and Space Invaders.[6] The player pilots the Sonic Spaceport starship and must defend the space station against enemies called the Gamma Raiders. Gameplay involves clearing each stage of the Gamma Raiders without colliding with them or their projectiles.[7] Each stage sets 48 Gamma Raiders in a formation, who break away and swoop down toward the player. Some will simply swoop down and fire at the player, and others will try to ram into the space station.[7][6] The Sonic Spaceport has a damage meter at the bottom of the screen, which depletes with enemy fire.[7] The player can lose a life by either allowing this meter to deplete or by colliding with a Gamma Raider or their projectile.[6] Three types of arcade cabinets were produced: a standard upright, a tabletop version, and a rare sit-down cabinet.[6]
Development and release
In the late 1970s,
Radar Scope was created by Nintendo Research & Development 2 (R&D2). Masayuki Uemura led the development of the game, while Hirokazu Tanaka programmed the audio and composed the music. Shigeru Miyamoto assisted in the game's art production as one of his first video game projects; however, his role in development is often debated, with some claiming he designed the onscreen graphics, and others saying he simply created the arcade cabinet artwork.[7] David Scheff's book Game Over claims that Miyamoto found the game "simplistic and banal" after it was completed.[7][9]
The arcade hardware for Radar Scope was co-developed with Ikegami Tsushinki. It is based on Namco's Galaxian (1979), with technology such as high-speed emitter-coupled logic (ECL) integrated circuit (IC) chips and memory on a 50 MHz printed circuit board. Galaxian, in turn, was based on Space Invaders hardware, replacing the more intensive bitmap rendering system with a hardware sprite rendering system that animates sprites over a scrolling background, allowing more detailed graphics, faster gameplay, and a scrolling animated starfield background.[10]
Radar Scope was released in Japan on October 8, 1980.
Arakawa moved the distressed startup to the Seattle area to cut shipping time. He asked his father in-law and Nintendo CEO
Reception and legacy
Publication | Score |
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AllGame | [12] |
Radar Scope was a commercial failure for Nintendo upon release. Out of an estimated 3,000 arcade cabinets shipped to the United States alone, 1,000 were sold to an underwhelming reception and the remaining 2,000 sat unsold in Nintendo's warehouse.[11] The salvage of unsold Radar Scope hardware—by creating Donkey Kong and Mario—provided the company with its first international smash hit and a resulting windfall of $280 million. This rescued Nintendo of America from financial crisis, established Nintendo as a prominent brand in America, and helped fund its launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System.[9]: 111 [13]
In a 1998 retrospective review, Earl Green of
In 2014, Jeremy Parish of
Notes
References
- )
- ^ a b "Radar scope (Registration Number PA0000096933)". United States Copyright Office. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
- ^ McFerran, Damien (2018-02-26). "Feature: Shining A Light On Ikegami Tsushinki, The Company That Developed Donkey Kong". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
- ^ Vacuum, Works|Sporadic. "Nintendo Archive - Works|Sporadic Vacuum". Hirokazutanaka.com. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
- ISBN 9781472118813.
Radar Scope owed much to the popularity of Space Invaders and Galaxian, but nevertheless felt original thank to its 3D third-person perspective.
- ^ Killer List of Videogames. Archived from the originalon 25 September 2019. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
- ^ USGamer. Archived from the originalon 2 May 2019. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
- ^ from the original on June 24, 2016.
- ^ OCLC 780180879. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
- ^ "【任天堂「ファミコン」はこうして生まれた】 第6回:業務用ゲーム機の挫折をバネにファミコンの実現に挑む" [How the Famicom Was Born – Part 6: Making the Famicom a Reality]. Nikkei Electronics (in Japanese). Nikkei Business Publications. September 12, 1994. Archived from the original on October 6, 2008. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
- "Making the Famicom a Reality". GlitterBerri's Game Translations. March 28, 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-05-05.
- ^ a b c d e Nix, Marc (14 September 2010). "IGN Presents: The History of Super Mario Bros". IGN. Archived from the original on 9 November 2019. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
- ^ Allgame. Archived from the originalon 14 November 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
- ISBN 978-3-640-49774-4. Archivedfrom the original on 18 April 2016. Retrieved 9 April 2011.
Donkey Kong was Nintendo's first international smash hit and the main reason behind the company's breakthrough in the Northern American market. In the first year of its publication, it earned Nintendo 180 million US dollars, continuing with a return of 100 million dollars in the second year.
- ^ Burke, Greg (22 June 2017). "Shack's Arcade Corner: Radar Scope". Shack News. Archived from the original on 23 June 2017. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
- 1UP.com. p. 2. Archived from the originalon 17 October 2012. Retrieved 9 December 2019.