LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Moon Patrol
built 213 days ago
The graphics in Moon Patrol are a bit of a mixed bag. The backgrounds and enemy graphics are very faithful to the arcade version, but your buggy looks like its been smashed into several times. The arcade version of Moon Patrol was one of the first games to feature Parallax scrolling, and this feature was actually incorporated into the 5200 version of the game. According to the programmer this effect was accomplished by simply changing the scroll rate at the appropriate scanlines. The sound effects are pretty close to the arcade version, and there is a cute little tune that constantly plays in the background that will stick in your head for days.
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The Moon Patrol cabinet is a similar design to the one used on "Joust", but with a slightly thicker control panel. This title features painted sideart (a scene showing a moon buggy being attacked, which is done in several shades of blue), and uses a horizontal monitor. The marquee shows another moon scene (this one done up in Marvel comics style graphics) of a yellow moon buggy attacking a hovercraft, with a purple space castle in the background (All of those things are different colors than the ones actually in the game, they probably neglected to show the graphic artist the actual game). The control panel uses a single 2-Way joystick which is mounted centrally, fire and jump buttons are on either side (meaning you can play this title with either hand).
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Most of the action with Moon Patrol centres around obstacles on the ground. There are bucket loads mines and craters to jump and occasionally other enemies. There are the yellow tanks, moon weeds, rolling balls and occasionally a low level pursuit ship will appear behind you.
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In Moon Patrol, you must focus on the obstacles before you while firing on attackers above you. Rocks, craters, and mines lie in your way, while aliens send misiles down to you. Two skill levels and a continue option are available.
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In 1982 the classic arcade gam Moon Patrol was released to the public. It was developed and designed Irem and was licensed for U. S. distribution to Williams. The player in the game controls a moon vehicle that travels over the moon’s surface. The player will view the side view of the vehicle. There will be obstacles such as craters and mines which have to be avoided. The vehicle will be attacked by UFOs from the sky and ... from tanks on the surface of the moon.
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Moon Patrol was an arcade smash hit from Williams (licensed from Irem), so it was only natural that Atari wanted it on the 2600. However, it was around this time that Atari lost faith in the abilities of it's own internal programmers after numerous questionable conversions, so they contracted Moon Patrol (and several other games) out to a company called GCC. GCC (which stands for General Computer Corporation), was a small company that got its start by selling illegal speed up kits for Missile Command machines. After Atari sued GCC they reached a legal settlement in which Atari got Food Fight and Quantum (two arcade games GCC developed). After the lawsuit Atari and GCC started to work together and developed a close partnership, which included (amongst other things) developing 2600 games. GCC later went on to create the Atari 7800 before leaving the video game market, and is now a producer of laser printers.
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Moon Patrol