Atari's Lunar Lander

Lunar Lander first originated in 1969 as a text based computer game programmed by Jim Storer, who was at the time a student at Lexington Massachusetts High School. He programmed the game for the Digital Entertainment Cooperation's (DEC) PDP-8 computer. This version then inspired the later version (also know as Moonlander) in 1973 for the GEC GT40. The game was produced to demonstrate the capabilities of the new computer. This game finally inspired Atari's version of Lunar Lander that was released in 1979. This was Atari's first vector game to be produced, and also one of the first to be registered in a copyright office in 1980.

Something that I thought was really cool was that the original arcade cabinet for this game had a trust handle that controlled the trust. I just thought that was neat because at the time most games just had analog sticks or just that large swivel ball. This made the game unique and more "realistic", which I just found interesting.

The objective of Lunar Lander is for the player to pilot a lunar landing module and safely land it on the surface of the moon. You must do this by using the modules thrusters to carefully  land on designated landing zones on the games playing field. The harder and more difficult the landing zone is to reach, the more points that are awarded to the player. Also, the game has a system that turns your fuel into "money". That is, the more fuel your module has after the landing, the more points that will be earned.

I found this game to be actually quite fun and challenging. This is because I never went for the large and easy landing zones. Instead I always accepted the challenge of going for the smaller and more difficult areas so that I may score more points. Because of these smaller and jagged landing zones, there was an added difficulty of precision. This not only made the game more fun (at least for me) but also made the game more addicting. Every time I failed at landing at one of the more difficult landing zones, I had to "redeem" myself and try again until I succeeded. I also found the phrases that were said if you crashed your lander. These added a bit of humor to the game.

You can see how the 5k spot is in a harder location.

I also never found the rumored easter egg of the game. That is, when you land in the right spot, a McDonalds will appear and your astronaut will go inside and order some food. Though, if you crash into the McDonalds, it will be destroyed until the game is reloaded.

Still, I found the game very enjoyable and a great classic for the arcade vault.

References:
http://atari.com/arcade/arcade/lunar-lander
http://technologizer.com/2009/07/19/lunar-lander/
http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=lunar-lander&page=detail&id=1417