Games that remind me of my childhood Number 27 : Mission Mars (Commodore Plus 4)

One of the (many) good things about spending a few days back home in Laindon is the opportunity to rummage through the family game collection and to reminisce on old Commodore Plus 4 classics.

So for this visit, I bring you Mission Mars, from 1985

Mission Mars...  The type of game where the box art makes the game look reasonably good (complete with a tagline saying that the game is 100% machine code!), but upon getting home and loading the game, you realise that you've just blown a good sum of money on a rather naff game.

That said, I do have fond memories playing this game which is why I have included it here.  The game is very simple and has you control a small space ship through vertical tunnels, avoiding various obstacles that get in the way.

That's it! 

Ok, the game description is as follows.

You have been sent on a mission to raid the caverns on Mars.  However, these caverns are known to be filled with booby traps.  Your task is to reach the centre of the caverns and land your ship.  Each cavern has 5 stages to survice and you will need a lot of skill to do so.

 

Hmmmm.  Basically the game has 5 stages which repeat over and over again once you reach the end of stage 5.

Stage 1 - Fly down the cavern, shooting enemy installations.

 

Stage 2 - Fly down the cavern, shooting randomly generated spaceships

Stage 3 - Fly down the cavern, avoiding randomly generated bouncing balls!

 

Stage 4 - Fly down the cavern, avoiding what I assume are comets.

 

Stage 5 - Fly down the very narrow cavern, avoiding the walls.

 

Sounds exciting eh?

 

Once you reach the end of Stage 5, you don't even need any skill to land the ship - just let it hit the wall at the end and then you're greeted with the following message...

 

!! MISSION COMPLETE !!
WELL DONE YOU HAVE
RAIDED THIS CAVERN

 

Once you press the fire button, you get to do it all over again!  No change in the game difficulty, no change in stage order.  You can literally finish this game in 5 minutes.

 

End of the game?

Oh yeah....  That was worth it!

 

Now, for the reason why I have included the game here....  I remember playing this game once on a little black and white portable television in the corner of our living room at my parents house, amassing a huge score just from playing the game from start to end, and restarting again with each completion on stage 5.  I wish I took a note of my final score

 

The box cover

The tape