''Omega Race'' is a

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charac ...

arcade game designed by Ron Haliburton and released in 1981 by Midway. It is the only arcade game with

vector graphics Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector display ...

that Midway created. ''Omega Race'' was ported to the

VIC-20 The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the ...

and Commodore 64 and published by

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ''Kommodore'' * Air commodore ...

in 1982. In 1983,

ColecoVision ColecoVision is a second-generation home video-game console developed by Coleco and launched in North America in August 1982. It was released a year later in Europe by CBS Electronics as the CBS ColecoVision. The console offered a closer exp ...

and

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...

versions were released by

CBS Electronics CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

Gameplay

Set in the year 2003, the player controls an Omegan Fighter spaceship to destroy enemy droid ships in a rectangular "track." The player's ship is controlled with a spinner to rotate the ship, a button for thrusting, and a button for firing lasers. The enemies that the player must destroy or avoid are drone ships, commander ships, two types of space mines, and shooting star ships. The ship bounces off an invisible barrier on the edges of the screen that briefly appears when hit. By default, extra ships are awarded at 40,000 and 100,000 points.

Ports

The Atari 2600 cartridge came bundled with a "booster grip" controller which converted the single-button

Atari CX40 joystick The Atari CX40 joystick was the first widely used cross-platform game controller. The original CX10 was released with the Atari Video Computer System (later renamed the Atari 2600) in 1977 and became the primary input device for most games on the ...

to having separate buttons for thrust and shoot. ''Omega Race'' is one of a few CBS games for the Atari 2600 with an additional 256 bytes of RAM in each cartridge, a feature promoted by CBS as "RAM Plus."

Reception

''Consumer Guide''s ''How To Win At Video Games'' stated in 1982 of ''Omega Race'' that "any unskilled player can pop a quarter into the machine and stay up there for up to 20,000 points." According to the book, more than 35,000 machines were created, with the average machine taking in $181.00 per week at the time of the book's publication. Frequently, it was one of the top ten money-making arcade machines in any given week in that time period. ''

Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET ...

'' called ''Omega Race'' "a real winner for the VIC". ''

BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...

'' stated that the

version "is fast paced, has colorful graphics, and features good sound effects ... ''Omega Race'' is a fun game that retains all the best characteristics of the arcade version". ''

Ahoy! ''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, focusing on all Commodore color computers, but especially the Commodore 64 and Amiga. History The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 198 ...

'' called the VIC-20 version "fairly faithful to the arcade game, and very exciting". The VIC-20 version of ''Omega Race'' was awarded a Certificate of Merit in the category of "Best Solitaire Computer Game" at the 4th annual

Arkie Awards An electronic game is a game that uses electronics to create an interactive system with which a player can play. Video games are the most common form today, and for this reason the two terms are often used interchangeably. There are other common ...

Legacy

''Omega Race'' was cloned for the

TRS-80 Color Computer The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer and sometimes nicknamed the CoCo, is a line of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Com ...

as ''Space Race'' in 1982. An update of the game for the

Atari Jaguar The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16-bit Sega Genesis, the Super NES and th ...

was pitched to

Atari Corporation Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when Warner Communica ...

by Temporary Sanity Designs, however, it never moved forward beyond the proposal phase and the document is in the hands of community member joekorali of AtariAge.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Omega Race 1981 video games Midway video games Arcade video games Atari 2600 games Cancelled Atari Jaguar games ColecoVision games Commodore 64 games VIC-20 games Racing video games Single-player video games Shoot 'em ups Vector arcade video games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in 2003 Video games set in outer space