Back to main list of All our 2600 Games
The Atari 2600 was first released in North America in September 1977 and featured 9 launch titles: Air-Sea Battle, Basic Math, Blackjack, Combat, Indy 500, Star Ship, Street Racer, Surround and Video Olympics. The final licensed Atari 2600 game released in North America was Secret Quest in 1989, and the final licensed game released in Europe was Klax and Acid Drop in 1990 and 1992. Even with their 1980s limited colors and block graphics these games are still entertaining to play today! We have over 500 Atari 2600 games for you to play online for free using our Atari 2600 Javascript Emulator.
This game is mobile device friendly and Iphone compatible. Enjoy!
Instructions and Keyboard Controls towards bottom of page.
Click “Game Reset” or F12 to Start Game
Star Fire
INSTRUCTIONS:
If you grew up in the 80’s you shouldn’t need instructions!! You might find some help at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atari_2600_games and look up the game you need assistance playing.
CONTROLS:
Click “Game Reset” or F12 to Begin/Restart Game
Arrow Keys – Move
Space bar to fire/action button
STAR FIRE It is a time of crisis for the Earth forces. Years of constant assault from the EXIDY coalition have left Earth almost totally defenseless. Intergalactic intelligence has discovered a new threat, several Exidy freighters, protected by an armada of smaller vessels, have entered a friendly sector of space and are advancing on Earth itself, loaded with enough weaponry to completely annihilate the planet. The peoples of Earth have but one remaining hope for victory. Launching from a secret base in the remote mountains, one of the few remaining STAR-FIRE class attack vessels races to counter the coalition threat. It's firepower an equal match for the enemy but it's rookie pilot, while eager, is young and inexperienced... PLAYING THE GAME The easiest (and cheapest) way to play Star Fire is to use one of the available Atari VCS emulators. I especially recommend Z26 by John Saeger on which it was completely developed. Download Z26 from: http://www.whimsey.com/z26/ For the real experience --> play it on the real thing! You can order the game on cartridge from Atari Age. Check out their homepage: http://www.atariage.com/ PRE-FLIGHT CHECKS Star Fire uses the left joystick controller. Be sure it is plugged firmly into the controller jack at the back of your Atari Video Computer System. Hold the joystick with the red button to your upper left, toward the television screen. THE TITLE SCREEN The title screen displays the currently selected starting wave ranging from 1-9, plus your final score from the last game. THE GAME SCREEN The main game screen puts you directly into the cockpit of your starfighter. At the top your current shield state is displayed: The more green lights, the better. In the main center window you get a direct view of your surroundings. Right below that is the meter showing you the current laser heat. The bigger the red bar, the hotter the laser. If the laser is getting extremely hot, the ships diagnostic system will jam it in order to prevent a burn out. At the bottom of the screen your radar readings are displayed. The inner area of the display shows all objects right in front of you, the outer area shows what's sneaking in from the sides or from behind. THE SCORE SCREEN In between waves, the score screen displays the wave to be played next and your current mission score. CONFIGURATION SWITCHES When the LEFT DIFFICULTY switch is in position A, the laser heats up twice as fast. Switch to position B for a simpler game if you prefer but beware, your scores will be significantly lower. The RIGHT DIFFICULTY switch toggles the movement of the spaceship along the y-axis. Set it to position B for realistic flight controls or to position A for reversed controls. Both switches can be altered any time on the fly with immediate effect. CHOOSING THE STARTING WAVE On the title screen you can choose the starting wave between 1-9, either by moving the joystick left or right to decrease/ increase the wave, or you can just increase the wave by pressing SELECT. The game will remember the last chosen wave. STARTING THE GAME Whenever the title tune is playing, you're in the attract mode. You can start a new game by pressing the fire button. GAMEPLAY Use your joystick to maneuver your starfighter. Push your joystick forward and your starfighter will dive. Pull back and you'll start climbing through space. Move your joystick right, and your ships course will change to the right. Move left, and your ship will swing left. Press the fire button to shoot your lasers. The StarFire is armed with four laser cannons that fire in clockwise rotation. Now that you've entered enemy territory, scan your radar scope at the bottom of the screen. The box in the center will show the enemy's position within your field of vision. Outside the box, you'll see the long range view of enemy spaceships. Warning! Exidy Freighters are equipped with wave-absorption shielding, rendering them invisible to your instruments. When an enemy ship comes into view, maneuver your ship into position and fire your lasers. After rapid firing, your lasers may become overheated - when this happens, the firing mechanism will shut down for a few seconds while they cool. While they do, watch out, you'll have only your reflexes to depend on. Dodge all enemy fire until your laser power returns. Whenever your ship gets a direct hit from enemy fire, your shield loses energy. To restore shield energy look out for energy diamonds. Vaporize the energy diamonds with your laser cannons. The 'scramble effect' will then convert their energy into power for your shields. When you manage to destroy all hostiles and put a sector back under the control of the Earth forces, a warp gate will appear to transport you to the next sector. ENDING THE GAME You can get back to the title screen any time by pressing RESET. FEEDBACK I'd really like to read comments, reviews, love or hate mails regarding Star Fire. Send your mail to: cybergoth@nexgo.de ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project wouldn't have been possible without the members of the Atari 2600 programmers mailing list: http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/stella.html Thanks to all the input from the people on the list I have found the encouragement, the information and the support needed to complete this project! Some peoples efforts deserve a special mention: David Rolfe and Ted Michon created the original Star Fire arcade game. Paul Slocum composed and programmed the Star Fire intro tune and additionally programmed the warp sequence including the warping SFX. Thomas Jentzsch programmed the Star Fire intro screen and additionally he's one of the top ranking idea contributors, playtesters and moral supporters. David Exton created the label artwork and this manual. Eckhard Stolberg as usual provided his superior hardware knowledge, especially real thing bug-tracking and weird TIA behavior analysis. The basic intelligent-flicker sprite-multiplexing engine used in Star Fire was inspired by Bob Colbert's efforts regarding that. I'm not using a single line from his code, but I learned a lot from studying his technique. And thanks to all other people that helped create Star Fire! LEGAL STUFF This game is freeware, so the BIN may be freely distributed as long as it is accompanied by this documentation file. Star Fire may be included on websites and shareware or freeware compilations, but please contact me first. You are not allowed to distribute Star Fire on Atari 2600 cartridges without my explicit permission. Star Fire (C) 2003 by Manuel Polik (XYPE)
REQUIRMENTS:
Our Atari 2600 emulator utilizes Javascript to run in your browser. No plugin is required, but a fast modern web browser will enhance the game play.
Emulation on mobile devices will drain your battery quite fast. I recommend playing while device is plugged into charger.
KEYBOARD CONTROLS
StarFire Arcade Game Emulated on the Atari 2600. Play StarFire in your web browser or mobile phone. This Atari 2600 console emulator provides very accurate StarFire gameplay. StarFire is a classic 1980s Atari 2600 video game.