''Submarine Commander'' is a 1982

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 chara ...

for the

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 microprocessor- ...

developed by Matthew Hubbard at

Atari, Inc. Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry. Based primarily around the Sunny ...

. It was released under the

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

Tele-Games label.

Gameplay

The player controls a submarine going through enemy territory. The player must shoot targets in order to win the game. The player views the action via a periscope that can be rotated through 360 degrees - a rarity for the time. Information provided to the player includes a radar scope, a depth-charge-detector, a fuel gauge, and an engine temperature gauge for detecting engine-overheating. There are eight modes of play, made up of single and two-player mode and four different levels of difficulty for each.

Development

The game was one of three developed by Atari exclusively for Sears, the others being ''

Stellar Track ''Stellar Track'' is an Atari VCS (later the Atari 2600) game developed by Rob Zdybel of Atari, Inc. and published by Sears under the "Tele-Games" brand in 1980. It is one of three such games that were released only through Sears. ''Stellar Track'' ...

'' and ''Steeplechase''. It was based on the ''Midway'' arcade game ''Sea Wolf II'' that was played with a periscope.

Reception

A December 1982 review in ''Joystik'' magazine described ''Submarine Commander'' as being a "very basic shooting-gallery type game." A retrospective review at ''8-Bit Central'' said the game was "not a visually pleasing experience", but that it the complexity of the gameplay made it "worth playing". ''8-Bit Central'' gave the game 2.5/5 overall. A December 2012 review on the ''Video Games Critic'' website called it "an eye-opening experience" and liked the faux-3D graphics and action and gave it a grade of "B+" overall.

References

{{Reflist 1982 video games Atari 2600 games Shoot 'em ups Submarine simulation video games Video games developed in the United States