Exojet +

About

Exojet + is a 1983 shooter for Odyssey 2 and Videopac G7000 where you pilot a stranded spacecraft in a deadly canyon. Enemy craft zip sideways across the screen firing missiles while hidden laser turrets blast from the walls. Your ship’s magnetic shield takes hits but slowly recharges, forcing you to dodge and shoot in equal measure. Each wave of enemies packs tougher attacks as you avoid base structures and collect risky score bonuses that ramp up the challenge. Despite its 30-year age, Exojet + still delivers tight reflex testing with its shifting threats and punishing later stages. The shield mechanic adds strategy to twitch play, and the sudden appearance of massive meteors near high scores keeps the tension fresh. A relic of early arcade conversions, it survives as a brutally simple test of skill on one of gaming’s earliest home systems.

Storyline

In Exojet + the player controls a spaceship which has gone astray during a reconnaissance mission to an unknown planet and enters a canyon from which it cannot escape. The goal is to survive while defending the ship against two main threats: enemy space ships that fire while flying over the canyon sideways in the screen and laser guns in the canyon to intercept the ship. The player's ship has a sight which will change its position according to where the threat comes from, moving to the top of the screen for the enemy ships and to the front of the player's ship for the laser guns. The player's ship is also equipped with a magnetic shield which is destroyed if hit, but regenerates after six seconds. After 10 enemies are destroyed, a spaceship base appears on the screen and the player must avoid destroying it. If the player touches the spaceship base, a bonus of 100 points will be granted, the magnetic shield takes half a second more to regenerate and the enemies become faster and better armed. In the beginning the enemies will fire single missiles, after the first base they'll fire groups of missiles, after the second they'll fire a "rain" of missiles and after the third they'll fire homing missiles. Further in the game, friendly ships will also appear and must not be destroyed. After the player reaches 2000 points an enormous meteor may appear which can only be avoided (with a 100 points bonus for the feat). After 5000 points the speed of the meteor increases, as does the bonus points awarded (150). Finally, after 7000 points the ship loses its magnetic shield. The game is over if the ship is hit without its magnetic shield of if crashes in the canyon walls or the meteor.