Moon Cresta

If I had 20 cents for every 20 cent piece I poured into a Moon Cresta cabinet as a kid, not only would I have my money back, I would also be sitting on a handy pile of dosh. Moon Cresta was THE game of the moment in 1981. Any time was a good time to be playing. Before school at the milk bar across from the school gates (so often did I pretend not to hear that morning bell), after school at the hamburger shop, weekends at the pool, anywhere you could get your hands on a machine, really. As a game it had some pretty stiff competition as both Galaga and Donkey Kong were making their presence felt at the same time. But it did have a lot of fans, and playing on a cocktail cabinet was always sure to draw an audience.

There were plenty of space shooters doing the rounds in 1981. Moon Cresta distinguished itself by going for an original look - it wasn't a Space Invaders or Galaxian clone. The aliens had a fresh appearance, and what made the game such a satisfying challenge was the unpredictable nature of the way they moved. With only a couple of exceptions, the enemies scurry around the screen at random, sometimes even re-entering the screen from below just when you think that they have passed by, and scaring the bejesus out of you. They don't shoot bombs, but they don't have to. Their movement is challenge enough, and there is no safe place on the screen to hide.

The first assignment is two waves of Cold Eyes. These are particularly tricky to deal with, and it was very common to see people blow their first life during this early phase. Surprising that the game starts out so hard. Next you face two waves of Suber Flies, which is a fairly easy assignment. It was always a source of ridicule if you were to perish at this point. Then comes a docking stage followed by a couple of waves of Four-Ds - large bird like creatures that very unhelpfully become invisible as they fly around the screen. Following this is an assault of meteors that come two at a time. No one ever bothered to try to shoot them all down. The better strategy is to keep right, shoot one of every two, and get ready to move to the centre of the screen for the next docking stage. Once you have bound those ship pieces together it's two waves of Atomic Piles and on to the next round to start the sequence again. "Far out!" says the screen - the game is happy for you.

A fun feature of Moon Cresta is the docking stages, where the idea is to back your current ship piece onto the subsequent larger piece. This increases the number of shots available to you, but also provides a larger target for the aliens. During the course of a round it is possible to have all three ship pieces docked together to form one big arse-kicking machine, though you only get to use it against the Atomic Piles. Once you get past them the sequence restarts and you will be back facing the unpredictable Cold Eyes again with the puny front section, a single shot at a time.

Perhaps these days Moon Cresta may appear to be too simple, but it is one of my all time favourite arcade games, and I still enjoy playing it.