Five missions, one galactic invasion, and you as the last defender under fire. Gorf wasn't just another shooter - it was an ambitious attempt to stack several different games into a single cabinet. On the Commodore VIC-20 it became one of the workhorses of the home library.
The original arcade Gorf was released by Midway in 1981 and its idea was bold for its time: the game consisted of multiple distinct phases, each resembling a different type of space shooter. The conversion for the Commodore VIC-20 was among the titles that helped this affordably priced home computer establish itself as a gaming platform where arcade ports in particular thrived.
Gorf's gameplay stood on variety. The player progressed through several different scenarios - from defending against descending swarms of enemies to the final assault on the command ship. This structure gave the game a sense of journey and progression that the ordinary single-screen shooters of the time often lacked, and kept up the tension by having each successive phase change the rules.
The VIC-20 was launched in the early 1980s as one of the first truly mass-affordable home computers, and its cartridge lineup lived and died on arcade conversions. Gorf was exactly the kind of game that demonstrated that even a cheap 8-bit machine could bring varied arcade action into the living room.
Gorf is remembered above all by players from the era of the first home computers as one of the games that defined the early VIC-20 catalog and showed just how far the capabilities of the cartridges of the day reached.
Why play: For a multi-phase space shooter that, instead of a single screen, offers a whole campaign against a galactic invasion.
Game 6 of 9 for Commodore VIC-20
