Ports
Missile Command was ported to the Atari 2600. The game's instruction manual describes a war between two planets: Zardon (the defending player) and Krytol. The original arcade game contains no reference to these worlds. On level 13, if the player uses all of his or her missiles without scoring any points, at the end of the game the city on the right will turn into "RF" — the initials of the programmer Rob Fulop. This Easter egg is originally documented in Atari Age (Volume 1, Issue 2) in a letter to the editor by Joseph Nickischer, and is the second one publicly acknowledged by Atari.
Missile Command was also ported to Atari's line of 8-bit computers. That version was also used in the Atari XEGS as a built-in game that boots up if there isn't a cartridge or keyboard in the console. In the 1990s, Missile Command was ported to handheld systems such as the Atari Lynx and Game Boy. It was released as part of the original Microsoft Arcade for the PC in 1993. It was also included in some compilations on Sega consoles: Arcade Smash Hits on Master System, Arcade Classics on Game Gear and Arcade Classics on Genesis.
On the Atari Jaguar, there is also Missile Command 3D. It contains three versions of the game: Classic, 3D, and Virtual. The last version is the only game that works with the virtual reality helmet from Virtuality (only 2 pieces are known to exist).
Having just acquired the Atari label, Hasbro Interactive released Microsoft Windows and PlayStation versions in 1999, but they did not sell well. Hasbro Interactive released a series of Atari classic remakes around that time, most of which quickly found their way to the discount bin.
Missile Command was released via Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360 on July 4, 2007 for 400 Microsoft Points (US$5). It features updated, high-definition graphics.
On September 23, 2008, Missile Command was released for the iPhone and iPod touch though the App Store for US$5. Features include two gameplay modes ("Ultra" and "Classic"), online high score rankings, variable difficulty, and the option to use the iPod function to play music instead of using the included game soundtrack.
Missile Command was made available on Microsoft's Game Room service for its Xbox 360 console and for Windows-based PCs in June 2010.
Read more about this topic: Missile Command
Famous quotes containing the word ports:
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“When its errands are noble and adequate, a steamboat bridging the Atlantic between Old and New England, and arriving at its ports with the punctuality of a planet, is a step of man into harmony with nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks of science, where they merely refit for this world, and no natural currents concur to individualize them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)