Let's Compare - Buck Rogers and the Planet of Zoom

[TrekMD]

Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom is an arcade game released by Sega. The game was later ported to home computers, the Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and Sega Master System. The game is based on the classic science-fiction comic hero of the same name.

Gameplay
The player guides Buck Roger's spaceship through various planets and outer space to destroy hopper droids and suicidal saucer ships. Fly safely through the electric pylons and the space gates in the trenches. Destroy the Mother Ship before it destroys you.

Note:  The Coleco Adam version has two additional sequences that were not in the arcade original.

Source:  Encyclopedia Gamia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrdgchPC83k&feature=em-subs_digest

[Shadowrunner]

A game I have never played. The arcade game looks good but I can't say the same for most of the home versions. I wouldn't mind picking up the Atari 8 bit version.

[Greyfox]

The Atari 8-bit version was the original version I played back in 1983 and didn't actually know at the time it was an Arcade port, like most of the home versions all they seemed to have a achieved was the power posts you pasted through, but was very cool that they managed hardware sprite scaling like that for the time and showed what could be done, shame we never really saw more of this type of thing.

I played the arcade original many years later and thought it was definitely a work in progress for Sega , with its simple shoot and dodge mechanism laid the floor plans for the likes of Space Harrier etc. it's a mediocre classic for sure.

[MadCommodore]

I think you have to take the original game in the context of timeline and the date it was released. It was an early 3D game and I don't think any other arcade manufacturer had such a sophisticated system.

I used to play this on the C64, bought it on cassette from US Gold with those glorious clamshell cases that were kinda new at the time. It's not a bad game but it's not really an arcade port. More of an interpretation really. I think the MSX had a version released as Zoom 909 which was much more like the arcade than the Atari/Vic20/C64 versions I know.

[MadCommodore]

I think you have to take the original game in the context of timeline and the date it was released. It was an early 3D game and I don't think any other arcade manufacturer had such a sophisticated system.

I used to play this on the C64, bought it on cassette from US Gold with those glorious clamshell cases that were kinda new at the time. It's not a bad game but it's not really an arcade port. More of an interpretation really. I think the MSX had a version released as Zoom 909 which was much more like the arcade than the Atari/Vic20/C64 versions I know.

[TrekMD]

Here is another video comparing the various versions of the games, with commentary...

https://youtu.be/Z6Xrc2PZwG0