Zaxxon
Zaxxon was released for the Atari 800 in 1982 in a conversion by Synapse Software, based on the arcade original of the same name by Sega. The game is notable for being one of the first to popularise the isometric view, which requires the player to judge not only their ship's left-right position but also its altitude above the surface. The goal is to fly through a defense complex full of towers, missiles and barriers, destroy targets on the ground and in the air, refill dwindling fuel, and finally face the robotic dragon Zaxxon at the end of each section before the game continues into an even tougher second area.
It was precisely this handling of altitude that made the game unusually demanding for its time - the player has to track their ship's shadow and the altitude indicator to judge whether they will clear an obstacle or crash into it, which required a different kind of spatial reasoning than the top-down or side-view shooters of the time and set the game apart from most of its contemporaries. The Atari version tried to emulate the visual style of the arcade original with smooth background scrolling and colour-differentiated terrain elements, which on eight-bit Atari hardware required skilled work with the available palette and sprites. The music was sparse, with emphasis placed mainly on explosion and gunfire sound effects, accompanied by the characteristic noise of fuel running low.
Zaxxon is today seen as a pioneering title that showed the isometric perspective could work even in a fast action game, and its influence is visible in numerous later games working with a pseudo-3D view. Conversions for eight-bit computers were sought-after titles back then precisely because they tried to bring the arcade experience home as faithfully as possible, and Zaxxon on the Atari 800 handled that task more than respectably for its time, albeit with the inevitable compromises imposed by the limitations of home hardware compared to a dedicated arcade machine.
Why play: For fans of arcade history who will appreciate how well isometric pseudo-3D action was translated to home eight-bit hardware, despite the inevitable compromises compared to the arcade machine.
Game 55 of 124 for Atari 800 / 8-bit
The same title elsewhere (4)
The 1982 ColecoVision version ranks among the best-regarded home conversions of the arcade original — the console managed to carry over the tilted isometric view and colour palette well enough that it felt almost like a little sibling of the arcade machine. The 1985 SEGA SG-1000 port had to cut back on far weaker hardware: fewer colours, coarser graphics and choppier background scrolling, so the sense of height and depth that Zaxxon relies on comes through noticeably weaker. Anyone wanting to feel why Zaxxon was a visual sensation in its day should reach for the ColecoVision version.
