In the game, you control a star fighter that must destroy several missile silos of a battlestation to keep it from launching one at Earth and destroying it. Opposing you are the battlestation's alien fighters who have been deployed to intercept you.
Not to be confused with the FMV game released for the Sega CD or the ZX Spectrum game 3D Starstrike (which was a clone of Star Wars: The Arcade Game).
This game provides examples of
- Airstrike Impossible: This game is reminiscent of the Death Star trench run in Star Wars: A New Hope.
- Difficulty Levels: Six in the Intellivision version, four in the Atari 2600 version.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: What happens if you fail to destroy the missile silos before Earth fully comes into view. Also the battlestation itself when you destroy all the missile silos.
- Interface Screw: Fireballs in the Atari 2600 version will cause your ship's controls to be temporarily messed up should they hit your ship.
- It's a Wonderful Failure: A mild example, but if the alien fighters manage to shoot you down before Earth is in target range... you get to watch a sequence of Earth approaching the trench and getting blown up because you, humanity's final hope, have failed.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The Atari 2600 version adapted the separate laser and bomb controls of the Intellivision original to be used with the single-button joystick controller, so that flying over the trench caused you to fire a laser while flying within the trench caused you to drop a bomb.
- Shoot 'Em Up
- Timed Mission: You only have a limited time before Earth is centered over the battlestation's trench. After this point, failing to destroy even one passing missile silo will result in Earth's destruction. On the hardest difficulty level, Earth starts at the trench, meaning it's game over if you miss even one silo.
