| Phoenix | |
| Platforms: | Arcade, Atari 2600 |
| Released: |
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| Genre: | Fixed shooter |
| Modes: | 1-2 players alternating turns |
Phoenix is a fixed shooter video game developed for arcades in Japan and released in 1980 by Taito. The player controls a space ship shooting at incoming enemies that fly from the top of the screen down towards the player's ship. There are five stages which repeat endlessly. The fifth is a fight against a large enemy spaceship, making Phoenix one of the first shooters with a boss battle, an element that would become common for the genre.
The game was created in Japan by an unknown developer. Following the game's release in Europe and Japanese arcades in 1980, Phoenix was distributed in the United States by Centuri, where it helped the company turn a profit after a loss the previous year. Atari, Inc. contracted the rights to develop a home port for the Atari 2600 and sued Imagic for their game Demon Attack, which they felt was too similar to Phoenix. The 2600 version was released in 1983.
The Atari port of Phoenix received positive reviews from contemporary video game publications such as Electronic Games, Electronic Fun with Computers and Games, and The Video Game Update with some reviews in Blip, JoyStik and Video Games felt it was not as strong as the similar game Demon Attack on the Intellivision. Retrospective reviews of the arcade game from Eurogamer and AllGame praised the game as expanding on formulas established in earlier shooter games.
Phoenix is a fixed-screen shooter, set in space. The player maneuvers left and right to avoid objects such as missiles and charging enemies. A force field can be used by the player to protect them from these attacks. The force field only lasts a few seconds and then cannot be used for approximately five seconds after.
There are five stages. The first begins with a wave of 16 small phoenixes that drop missiles to attack the players spaceship. A second wave includes more birds. The third wave introduces an enemy that appears in a group of eight. These enemies start as eggs than grow into blue phoenix birds that attack the ship. They need to be destroyed by being hit in the center, otherwise a shot will only destroy the bird's wing that can regenerate itself in a short time. The fourth stage features pink phoenix enemies, which can be destroyed similarly to the previous round. The fifth stage features a space fortress with a pack of small birds that attack the spaceship. The space fortress shoots missiles and approaches the player. After the space creature who pilots the ship is hit, the round is complete.
Switches are available on the arcade machine to the operator of the machine that can adjust gameplay. These switches allow the number of initial lives in the game to range between three and six, while other switches control what score is required to earn an extra life.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several game companies made outer-space themed shooter games, which involved players destroying alien space fleets. These games generally shared the traits of enemies slowing approaching towards the player from the top of the screen and attacking the player. Phoenix was one of the games following this trend.
Phoenix was initially developed in Japan. Japanese creators of video games were often denied credit for work by their companies out of fear they would go and work for rivals. The original developer of Phoenix is unknown. The rights to the game for distribution were owned by several companies, including Amstar Electronics who were based in Phoenix, Arizona. Centuri entered into a licensing agreement with Amstar Electronics to release Phoenix in the United States, Canada, and Central and South America. Centuri had previously been Allied Leisure Industries, with Ed Miller becoming the company's president in 1980. Prior to working at Centuri, Miller had worked for Taito, where he had arranged a deal with to license Space Invaders (1978) to Bally Manufacturing.
In 1982, Atari received a four-year contract to distribute all current and future Centuri arcade games outside of the arcade systems, and the first three games announced were ports of the games Vanguard (1981), Challenger (1981) and Phoenix. The Atari port of the game was made by John Mraceck and Michael Feinstein. Mraceck was a junior at MIT at the time and made the game as part of his internship. It was developed in mid-1982. Mraceck said that they had to cut over one-third of their original code to fit the game on the cart. The two developers were limited to 8 KB rom cartridge for the game. The Atari 2600 version is missing elements from the arcade original, such as the ability to save high scores, the music, the star field background, numerals representing points when a bird is hit, the smaller birds appearing around the mothership, and has fewer enemies appear on the screen. The music lost from the arcade version included "Romance de Amor", which is played when the game starts and "Für Elise" which is played when a player completes a level.
Phoenix was released in Japan on December 1980 where it was licensed to Taito. The arcade version of the game was distributed in the United States by Centuri in January 1981.
Phoenix was released for the Atari 2600 in February 1983. Atari had the exclusive rights to produce Phoenix for home consoles and filed suit against the company Imagic, believing that their game Demon Attack (1982) was too derivative of Phoenix. A settlement was reached in January 1983, with Imagic still being allowed to release Demon Attack for the Atari 2600. Phoenix was released for home computers and game systems in the compilation game Taito Legends (2005) for Xbox, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Windows PCs.
The arcade game was popular in Europe and Japan. At the end of 1981, Centuri reported revenues of USD$61.4 million with a profit of 7.5 million. In comparison, the company's previous year gross was $5.9 million with a loss of $4.5 million. Phoenix was the best selling of Centuri's titles by 1982. The Atari 2600 version sold over 600,000 units.
The Video Game Update referred to the Atari 2600 adaptation as a good translation of the arcade classic. In Electronic Games, Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz wrote that the game was favorably compared to other Atari 2600 releases such as Vanguard, Yars' Revenge (1982), and Demons to Diamonds (1982), noting the quality in graphics and control, and stating it "is perhaps the finest invasion title ever produced for the 2600!" Noel Steere of Electronic Fun with Computers and Games praised the game, stating it was a "perfect arcade adaptation" with beautiful sound, which made up "for the sin of Pac-Man". The game received a Certificate of Merit in the category of "1984 Best Science Fiction / Fantasy Videogame" at the 5th annual Arkie Awards. Some critics compared the game to Imagic's Demon Attack. Jim Gorzelany of JoyStik found that the gameplay and challenge was too watered down compared to the original arcade game and Imagic's game. Phil Wiswell of Video Games found that Atari's versions of both Phoenix showcased that Atari could still make both fun and graphically-appealing games, while finding the game still suffered in comparison to the Intellivision release of Demon Attack. An anonymous reviewer in Blip magazine concurred that the Intellivision version of Demon Attack was superior, but found that final battle with the mothership in Phoenix allowed Atari's game to stand on its own.
In a retrospective review by Brett Alan Weiss of AllGame the game was awarded a five out of five rating, referring to it as a "one of the most impressive games the "slide-and-shoot" genre has to offer, bested only by Galaga (1981) in terms of sheer enjoyment and replayability" and said that "finely balanced" shooting action combined with "colorfully" animated graphics made Phoenix a classic in shooter genre. In his book The Video Game Guide (2013), Matt Fox compared the game to Galaxian (1979), stating that Phoenix took its gameplay "a few screens further". Chris Wilkins of Eurogamer complimented the arcade game for expanding the gameplay of the shooter genre, specifically with the boss character and that the game was addictive as it "never fails to invoke the "one more go" desire in the player." In 1995, Flux magazine ranked the arcade version of Phoenix at #69 on their list of "Top 100 Video Games", saying that it was one of the better Space Invaders variations. Discussing the game in Retro Gamer, Nick Thorpe compared the game to Space Invaders, finding Phoenix "considerably advanced" due to its difficulty to predict behaviors of enemies and final boss fight while also noting that it lacked some elements from modern shooters, such as power-ups and a larger enemy variety.
Brett Weiss included the Atari 2600 port of Phoenix in his book The 100 Greatest Console Video Games 1977-1987 (2014). Weiss declared the Atari port had rich graphics, crisp sound and excellent gameplay, preserving the feel of original arcade game. Retro Gamer included the Atari 2600 port of the game in their list of the top 25 games for the system in 2008.
Phoenix was one of the first shooter games to have a boss battle. Bosses would come to typify the shooter genre following the release of the game. Games that borrowed elements from Phoenix include Space Vultures, Gorf (1981), Pleiades (1981), and Condor Attack (1983). Bootleg versions of Phoenix were released in arcades as Condor, Griffon, Vautour, and Batman Part 2.