''Meteor Mission II'' (written as ''Meteor Mission 2'' on the title screen) is a clone of the

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan. I ...

arcade game ''

Lunar Rescue ''Lunar Rescue'' (ルーナー・レスキユー Runā Resukyū) is an arcade game released by Taito in November 1979. The gameplay has some resemblance to both Taito's own 1978 hit ''Space Invaders'' and Atari, Inc.'s ''Lunar Lander'' (release ...

'' released by

Big Five Software Big Five Software ( Big 5 Software) was an American video game developer in the first half of the 1980s founded by Bill Hogue and Jeff Konyu. The company released games for the Tandy TRS-80 and later the Atari 8-bit family. Most of its TRS-80 ga ...

for the

TRS-80 The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...

home computer in 1982. It was written by Big Five co-founders Bill Hogue and Jeff Konyu.

Gameplay

The game is similar in concept to '' Lunar Lander'' but adds a rescue element. The initial goal is to navigate a ship through a moving meteor belt and land on one of several landing pads. A small figure runs out from the side of the screen, enters the ship, and then the player must navigate and fire back through the meteor field and dock with the mothership.

Development

The game was the fifth of seven arcade clones programmed for the TRS-80 by Bill Hogue and Jeff Konyu, who left the TRS-80 platform in 1982. Hogue previously wrote and published an unrelated game called ''Meteor Mission'' that was withdrawn from the market. He would later that year create the

platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

Miner 2049er ''Miner 2049er'' is a platform game created by Bill Hogue that was released in 1982 by Big Five Software. It was developed for the Atari 8-bit family and widely converted to other systems. The title "Miner 2049er" evokes a 21st-century take on t ...

'' for the Atari 8-bit family.

Reception

Ian Chadwick reviewed ''Meteor Mission II'' in '' Ares Magazine'' #13 and commented that "the challenge is limited and the game is really not terribly exciting. This is prime stuff for the younger set but otherwise pale in comparison to other efforts". A review in ''80-U.S.'' stated that "the graphics in ''Meteor Mission II'' are very good", but that "sound effects are not very fancy". In the conclusion, the reviewer called it "well worth the $15.95" and "impossible to master to a point where it lacks challenge". In a 2012 retrospective, ''

Gamasutra ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...

'' wrote that "'inspired by' the early Taito classic ''Lunar Rescue'', this Big Five Software effort remains a compelling gameplay experience".

References

External links

Review
in Creative Computing
''Meteor Mission II''
on YouTube 1982 video games Big Five Software games Shoot 'em ups TRS-80 games TRS-80-only games Video game clones Video games developed in the United States {{8bitcomputer-game-stub