Moon Patrol

released on May 08, 1982

Moon Patrol is an arcade game originally released in 1982 by Irem and later licensed for release in North America by Williams (Midway). It is a side-scrolling shooter that puts players at the controls of a six-wheeled moon rover that can jump and shoot. The goal is to move through the entire course as quickly as possible while shooting enemies for additional points. Cannons are mounted on the front and top of the vehicle, and both fire simultaneously when the fire button is pressed. Rocks, mines, and pits in the course prevent you from just holding to the right for maximum speed. Rocks and mines can be shot, but pits must be jumped. Some enemies fire shots that create new pits in the course, forcing players to react quickly.


Reviews View More

Quite entertaining. A runner style game. I had fun finishing the first loop.

The great thing about this game is how it builds the challenge as you play. On the first run it gradually introduces new enemies and obstacles that never feel unfair, but constantly force you to use your limited set of movement and shooting to contend with them. Once you run through the stages once, the challenge mode adds a few more variables on the first run before getting progressively tougher. There's also some neat graphical touches like how your vehicle drives through explosions from the saucer bombs when you just barely avoid them. The backgrounds do a good job of being unobtrusive while providing a good sense of traversal, but I do wish there was more here than just the tiles of the city and barren landscape.

A fun diversion that requires good timing but little else, it's a historical marvel that's aged perfectly fine, but is incredibly short-lived due to just how many modernizations of its gameplay have been made over the decades.

Good ol' Moon Patrol. Not an overly complicated game, but a safe, easy-to-understand title from an era where arcade games were still figuring themselves out. Good for a quick run through, timing jumps and shooting out obstacles. I guess the first ever full implementation of parallax, which is pretty cool. Not much else to it, but that's all okay. Good stuff.

[the guy all the way in the back of the moon buggy, quietly at first] “Parallax, parallax, parallax..”
[the rest of the guys in the moon buggy, joining in faster and louder and into a frenzy] “Parallax! ParalLAX! PARALLAX!”