Caverns of Mars
Description
Martian galactic fleets surround the planet and are demanding its surrender! The Terra IV High Command knows that your space fighter, the HELICON VII, is the only craft equipped to invade the Martian Headquarters deep within the Caverns of Mars. Your mission: Sabotage the Martian defense system by activating their deadly fusion bomb.
Make your way down two to five caverns, depending on the difficulty level. Do not hit the walls of the cavern or any Martian items. You will need to shoot fuel tanks as you go because you use fuel constantly. You must make your way through all the caverns to the fusion bomb, which you then touch to activate. Once activated, you must return to the surface before the bomb explodes.
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Reviews
Critics
Average score: 72% (based on 9 ratings)
Players
Average score: 2.9 out of 5 (based on 8 ratings with 1 reviews)
Great game, but a bad Scramble
The Good
Caverns is basically Scramble. As it is somewhat easier to do vertical scrolling than horizontal on the Atari, the game rotated the motion from scrolling to the left to scrolling upward. The game was also less advanced in terms of action - the rockets didn't fire upward for instance, but simply sat on the ground.
In spite of this, the game simply worked. Getting to the bottom was a challenge and escaping added a wrinkle to the gameplay that Scramble lacked. It was good for hours of fun.
The Bad
The lack of moving targets was annoying.
The Bottom Line
A basic Scramble clone, and lots of fun.
Atari 8-bit · by Maury Markowitz (266) · 2012
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Game added by LepricahnsGold.
Antstream added by lights out party.
Game added July 31, 2007. Last modified May 24, 2024.