Origins/gameplay[]
Starhawk was a First Person Shooter arcade game made by Cinematronics. It supported solitary play and up to two players simultaneously, which they had to destroy ships that flew over a planet by positioning their onscreen cursors on the ships while firing. The games were timed, which the player(s) had two minutes to score at least 10,000 points (or a multiple thereof), which would lead to an additional 20 seconds worth of gameplay added to the clock. However, the alien ships would become harder to hit as a difficulty increase.
One certain ship that appeared in the corner of the screen would make a warning sound as it emerged, which, if destroyed quickly, would give the player 800 points. If the ship wasn’t destroyed, or wasn't destroyed quickly enough, it would subtract 800 points from the player's(s’) score.
The game was released in 1977 in the arcades and in 1982 for the Vectrex, which had a few small differences in the game, which included the player’s cursor enlarging when the special ship was destroyed, along with awarding double points for every ship destroyed and increasing the planet’s scrolling speed for several seconds afterwards. Also, a game would start off with one minute on the clock (rather than two), and the planet did not speed up, nor the player’s cursor enlarge when they shot the special ship on the original. Game two is also geared towards the original Vectrex analog controller, where the player can move the cursor in one direction, but if they let go of the joystick, the cursor would snap back to its original starting position. Control on this game variation will not work with modern day converted digital controllers.
Scoring[]
- Bomber--100 points
- Missile--200 points
- Rocket--300 points
- Starship--500 points
- Command Ship--800 points
Modern day remake[]
A remake entitled Star Hawk 2 was also released in 2010, having a few minor differences and enhancements, such as a first ever instructions/score table screen in the demo, more ships appearing onscreen at once, and the Command Ship swooping in and shooting 800 points off the player's score if it is not dealt with quickly enough, among other things.
Notes/trivia[]
- The game seems to be called "Starhawk" when it was originally released, but when it’s played on a Vectrex or emulator, on the title screen it’s two words.
- The modern day online version was a cross between the original and the Vectrex port, having the feature of the target site and point value doubling when the Command Ship was destroyed (see Links).
Gallery[]
Links[]
- Stage Select review (4/10)
- The modern day recreation of the game can be seen here, although the site only works with Internet Explorer, Opera Mobile, or FireFox (although it is currently not known if only the most recent or older versions of the latter will also work). Its video can be seen here
This article uses material from the Vectrex Wikia Star Hawk article and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.