Mine Storm

Mine Storm was the game every Vectrex owner played first – whether they wanted to or not, since it couldn't be removed. It was permanently burned into the console's memory and started up automatically whenever no cartridge was plugged into the slot. It's a loose variation on Asteroids: a small vector ship hovers in the middle of the screen, surrounded by a field of magnetic mines that the player must blast apart before they close in. But the mines don't behave like passive rocks. Each type has its own personality – some break into smaller pieces when hit, others actively hunt the player, others release shrapnel or split into swarms of small fighters. Progressing between waves means the mine types combine and their numbers grow, so what starts as a clear, open field quickly turns into a trap. The ship can rotate, thrust, and jump into hyperspace, which randomly teleports the player elsewhere – sometimes straight into a mine.

Technically, Mine Storm is a showcase for why the Vectrex existed in the first place. The built-in black-and-white vector monitor draws lines directly with the electron beam, so the screen knows no pixels or blurry edges: the ship and mines are sharp, glowing outlines that never break up even during fast movement. The ship's rotation is completely smooth, something raster consoles of the era couldn't manage, and explosions scatter into a delicate web of lines. The sound is spare, synthetic, and nervous; the beeps and buzzes exist mainly to ramp up the tension, and they succeed. The picture was also topped with a colored plastic overlay placed over the screen, which gave the black-and-white image a tint of color and highlighted the playing field.

Period reviews cited the game as proof that home vector graphics were no mere curiosity but a full-fledged arcade experience. There's also a well-known story about a bug in the later levels that led the manufacturer to offer a fixed version under the name Mine Storm II. Today, Mine Storm is above all a great introduction to the Vectrex aesthetic: simple, tough, and addictive arcade action where you can lose an entire evening chasing a better score without even noticing.