Missile Command book

[davyk]

This dropped onto my doormat yesterday. 

Reduced to £20 for Black Friday. Signed by the author.

Have dipped in and it's well written. The high score story of this game (this book covers that and MUCH more) is great because of Roy Shildt aka Mr Awesome - bonkers classic gamer who featured in a Playgirl spread.

I had no idea his record had been busted by a UK player! (The author).  This was a favourite in the arcades. I remember playing this with my cousins and have happy memories of that. It's a great 2P game too because it alternates turns between waves so no-one is standing around too long.

Created by the legend that is Dave Theurer - who also did the Tempest   (wow).

[TrekMD]

Cool.  That is a nice book. 

[zapiy]

I know Tony pretty well, clearly not well enough to know he had released this already lol.

I will go and bag me a copy.

[davyk]

It's very good. I posted a mini-review of it on his site.

I watched parts of his record run on his site. Missile Command tournament mode competitive play is mad. Once you hit about 250,000 you are seconds away from a game over as you end up with one city to protect. One slip up and it's over.  He scored over 4m without messing up - his game ended because one of the fire buttons malfunctioned!!!

Tournament mode Missile Command is one of the most impressive score categories because unlike in marathon modes you can't build up a huge number of lives. To be fair to marathon Missile Command players, it's one of the trickiest to play too because the game will reset if you don't manage the number of extra cities you have. The city counter only goes up to 255 - overflow it and the game ends...

Missile Command play is at least as impressive as Donkey Kong and Asteroids Deluxe runs as they are pretty intensive games too even at elite level. All 3 of these games have an element of randomness that needs to be responded to in real time. There  is no pattern play in these games.

[DaveySloan]

Awesome.  Met Tony once at one of the early Replay events.  Absolutely lovely fella.  I made the mistake of embarrassing myself playing Missile Command in front of him though.  I think I lost it on about the 3rd screen or so.  He kept telling me to "calm down" 

I've a load of retro books ordered for Xmas, but I'll keep an eye out for this one & stick it on my reserve list for when I get though my pile a bit.