Beamrider

Beamrider was released by Activision for the Atari 800 in 1984 as the studio's own vision of the shooter genre, inspired by the film Tron. The player controls a ship moving along fixed vertical beams in a sector grid and must destroy waves of enemy ships before reaching the dreaded command vessel at the end of each sector. Besides regular shooting, the player has a limited number of torpedoes that can hit enemies off the beam paths, or can be used as a backup weapon against tougher targets, and using them economically is one of the keys to progressing to higher sectors.

The beam-based movement system gave the game a different feel from classic free-movement shooters - the player focuses on precisely jumping between paths and deciding when to use the limited torpedo supply, rather than relying purely on dodging fire. On the Atari 8-bit, the game benefited from sharp colour contrasts between the dark background and the glowing beams and enemy ships, which suited the sci-fi-flavoured aesthetic well and gave the game a distinct visual identity. Progress through the game was structured into fifteen sectors of rising difficulty and gradually more varied enemy types, giving the player a clear sense of progress and motivation to keep playing.

Beamrider was among Activision's commercially and critically successful titles of the mid-1980s, praised for its original take on the shooter genre at a time when the market was being flooded with less inventive arcade clones. Its influence is evident in how it showed that even a seemingly simple principle of restricted movement can sustain a full-fledged, long-lastingly playable game. For today's player it offers a fast, clear and still-fun arcade experience that retains its freshness even after all these years and proves that Activision knew how to offer original game concepts in the mid-1980s beyond its best-known brands.

Why play: For a fast, clear arcade experience that stays fresh even after all these years – proof that Activision could offer original concepts beyond its best-known brands.