Yars' Revenge
Main game
3.29 average rating based on 65 ratings
- Developers
- Atari
- Publishers
- Atari, Polyvox
- Series
- Yars' Revenge
- Platforms
- Atari 2600, Web Browser
- Genres
- Arcade, Shooter
- Themes
- Action, Science fiction
- Steam
- View on Steam
Release Dates
User Stats
How Long Is Yars' Revenge?
Related Content
Good, Classic Shoot Em Up With Some Twists
This review is for the Atari 2600 version
Look: 8/10 Gotta love the Atari colors. And I love the safe zone strip graphic.
Sound: 8/10 Again, gotta love the Atari crunch. Tho it's not as remarkable as some of the other Atari games, it still is great stuff.
Play: 7/10 Shoot away the shield and kill the boss! Simple shoot em up, but with some fun little twists like a safe zone in the center, that darn always-following bullet, etc. Eventually, it gets repetitive. But it is a well-made, clever game. And the controls/game quality itself is top-notch.
Feel: 7/10 Not a favorite, as it seems to be for some, but a good-quality shoot em up with some fun twists.
Attachment: 7/10 Similar theme here: great game, but how often I will be replaying it is questionable! Definitely worth a playthrough if you like shoot em ups!
Completion: 3 murders, so to speak, ha Playtime: 20 mins
One of the best designed games of All Time
Of course I'd heard about Yar's Revenge; its designer, Howard Scott Warshaw, was infamous for also designing ET, and it was remarkable that both the best-selling original Atari game and the game credited for the first downfall of the entire video game industry were written by the same person. But despite having heard about it, it wasn't until this week that I actually gave Yar's Revenge a shot.
Golly am I sad it took this long.
Without doubt there are academic papers to be written about this game's design. Given the very limited controls, the depth and tension of the gameplay is impressive. One design touch I find really inspired is how the super-cannon that blows up the boss is lethal to you as well, yet is aimed by the position of your ship, forcing you to fly out of the way after launching it. I also really appreciate the creativity in shield designs -- I was really surprised in the second stage the way the shield sort of "rotates" in a unique way, causing the holes you make in it to move around.
Absolutely play this game, and if you care about game design, stop to think about how …
Of course I'd heard about Yar's Revenge; its designer, Howard Scott Warshaw, was infamous for also designing ET, and it was remarkable that both the best-selling original Atari game and the game credited for the first downfall of the entire video game industry were written by the same person. But despite having heard about it, it wasn't until this week that I actually gave Yar's Revenge a shot.
Golly am I sad it took this long.
Without doubt there are academic papers to be written about this game's design. Given the very limited controls, the depth and tension of the gameplay is impressive. One design touch I find really inspired is how the super-cannon that blows up the boss is lethal to you as well, yet is aimed by the position of your ship, forcing you to fly out of the way after launching it. I also really appreciate the creativity in shield designs -- I was really surprised in the second stage the way the shield sort of "rotates" in a unique way, causing the holes you make in it to move around.
Absolutely play this game, and if you care about game design, stop to think about how it feels, and why it feels that way.