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for any reason whatsoever.
Defender is a registered trademark of Midway Games.
Atari 2600 Video Computer System and any accessories mentioned within are
registered trademarks and/or copyrighted materials owned by Atari Games.
GameFAQs is a registered trademark and copyrighted 1995-2006 by Jeff 'CJayC'
Veasey.
Any other names mentioned within not mentioned within this section are
registered trademarks and/or copyrighted materials of their respective owners.
Larcen Tyler is in no way affiliated with any of the companies listed above,
or their affiliates in any way. No affiliation should be assumed for any
reason whatsoever.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. REVISION HISTORY
2. HOW TO PLAY THE GAME
3. SCORING INFORMATION
4. TIPS
5. CONTACT INFORMATIOn
6. CREDITS
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1. REVISION HISTORY
Version 1.0:
11/26/05: Out of boredom, decided to write a guide for this game since it
doesn't have one.
Red alert! Evil aliens from space have invaded the Earth! They're capturing
people left and right and turning them into vile mutants. The landers come
from the sky and touch down on the city, sucking helpless people into their
tractor beam, before carrying them away from the city and doing their dirty
work!
You are the last hope for civilization. As the pilot of the Universal Space
Ship Defender (hereafter referred to as Defender,) you have the ability to
stop these extraterrestrial beings from destroying the Earth. Armed with your
laser cannon and smart bombs, you must fly above the city, attacking all of
the hostile beings and rescuing humans.
BEGINNING THE MISSION:
To begin the mission, first set up your Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 according to
your owner's manual. Plug a joystick into the left jack, and a second one
if you are playing with a friend. Insert the cartridge into your system,
and power up. You should see a demonstration of the game start.
For a slow moving Defender, set your difficulty switch to A (left position.)
For a faster moving Defender, set it to B.
There are twenty different game selections, with ten variations of gameplay for
one or two players. Variations 1-10 are for one player, and variations 11-20
are for two players. The different variations are listed below as follows,
with the one player variation first and then the two player variation:
Game 1/Game 11
Normal Speed
Starting Wave: 1
Game 2/12
Fast Speed
Starting Wave: 1
Game 3/13
Hyper Speed Mutant Training*
Starting Wave: 1
Game 4/14
Normal Speed
Starting Wave: 3
Game 5/15
Fast Speed
Starting Wave: 3
Game 6/16
Hyper Speed Mutant Training*
Starting Wave: 3
Game 7/17
Normal Speed
Starting Wave: 5
Game 8/18
Fast Speed
Starting Wave: 5
Game 9/19
Hyper Speed Mutant Training*
Starting Wave: 5
Game 10/20
Slow Speed
Starting Wave: 1
(Children's Version)
*See below for more details on Mutant Training
GAMEPLAY:
Once you have selected your game variation, press the reset switch or the
fire button. You will hear an air-raid siren, signalling that the invasion
has begun!
Defender starts out facing to the right, but can be moved left or right to
patrol the area while you seek out the enemy invaders. To accelerate the
Defender left or right, simply press and hold the joystick in that
direction. You can move the ship vertically by moving the joystick up or
down.
To fire a laser shot, press the button on your joystick. You have
unlimited shots, but only one shot can be on screen at a time. If you
press the button while a shot is flying across the screen, that one will
disappear and a new one will be fired.
You start with three smart bombs, which can destroy all enemies on screen
at once. In order to use a smart bomb, you must first dive into the city
for cover, and once the Defender is completely in the city, press the fire
button to detonate the bomb.
The Defender is also equipped with a hyperwarp function, which requires the
Defender to be at a high altitude to use. To do this, move the Defender to
the top of the screen, untill it disappears, then press the button to warp
to a random location.
THE CIVILIANS AND THE ENEMIES:
The primary goal of Defender is to protect the innocent people of the city
from the Landers that are attempting to capture them and turn them into
mutants. These people are represented by little 'blips' on the bottom of
the screen, and you will start each game with five of them.
Landers are triangle-shaped ships with a circle on top that are trying to
capture the people. If a Lander successfully manages to land in the city,
it will begin to capture a person with its tractor beam. When this happens,
a high pitched noise like a chipmunk chattering will be heard.
When you hear this sound, use your scanner to locate the Lander that is
kidnapping a human (it should appear as two blips, one atop the other,
on your scanner.) If you are able to destroy the Lander while its tractor
beam is still on, the person will safely return to the city surface.
However, if the Lander has captured the person, do not give up just yet, as
you still have a chance to save them. Simply shoot the lander and then
fly your ship into the person to catch them. After that, try to return them
to the city streets below by flying Defender into the city. You'll know
they are safe in the city again when you hear a short tune play.
If you do not catch a person, they will plummet to the city and meet a rather
untimely demise by hitting the surface hard. You will hear a 'crash' sound,
and you will receive no bonus points. If the Lander wasn't too far from
the city, however, there is a chance the person may still survive.
In the event that you are unable to save a person, you will hear a noise and
the Lander will change into a mutant, a brown flying alien creature that is
very fast and chases you persistently. Mutants are harder to hit and are
very dangerous, so you must work hard to prevent the Landers from kidnapping
people.
In addition to the Landers, you must also look out for Bombers, light blue
squares that fly from the bottom to the top of the screen laying out mines
that will destroy the Defender upon contact. These enemies are not too
hard as long as you time your shots correctly.
Pods look like small suns that float onscreen and shoot occasionally at your
ship. Shooting one will release Swarmers, four large circles in a small clump
that fly after your ship in an effort to ram it and destroy it.
Baiters are oval shapes that pursue your ship in a quick manner while shooting
at it. They are also trying to draw your attention away from the Landers
while they continue to capture persons from the city.
MUTANT TAKEOVER:
If all five civilians in the city are either transformed into mutants or
killed, the entire city will explode and disappear. From that point on, you
will be taking on countless mutants in the blackness of space instead of
the various enemies you encountered previously. The city remains destroyed
untill the next wave that is a multiple of five (e.g. 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.)
If you wish to practice fighting in a situation like this, you can play
on a variation that involves Mutant Training, which will have the city
gone and mutants in every wave.
END OF A WAVE:
When all enemies are defeated, the wave is completed, and the number of the
wave just completed will flash onscreen while a short tune plays. Each
wave will get more and more difficult, with the aliens moving faster and
the tractor beams taking less time to beam up people.
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Person Survives Fall From Lander: 250 Points
Catch Person Without Returning Them: 500 Points
Return Person To City: 1000 Points
Survivng People At End Of Wave: 100 Points per Person
You start with three lives and three smart bombs. For every 10,000 points
earned, you will receive an extra Defender and an extra smart bomb. While
you will only see three of each displayed onscreen, the computer will keep
track of extras you have earned, and there is no limit to how many of each
you can have.
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4. TIPS
-Pay attention to the sound. If you hear the high pitched distress signal of
a person being kidnapped, check your scanner immediately and head toward the
person in distress.
-The hyperwarp is totally random in terms of where you will be teleported to,
so while it can be useful in a tight situation, there's no guarantee that you
will be taken to a safer spot.
-Conserve smart bombs for extreme situations, like when you're outnumbered,
or when a person is being kidnapped and you don't have time to reach them
and shoot the Lander that's kidnapping them.
-Make sudden reversals to confuse enemies, and while they're getting back
on track, you can either retreat or destroy them.
-And lastly, but never ever least, HAVE FUN!
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5. CONTACT INFORMATION
READ THIS BEFORE YOU SEND ME ANY E-MAIL!
The following types of E-Mail I will _NOT_ accept under any circumstances:
-Mail that contains flaming (insults) or offensive content within. If you
don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything!
-Spam/Advertisements of any kind. This is against the law, and will not be
taken lightly.
-Asking if you can use this on your website/in your FAQ/Magazine/anything
like that will not be tolerated. In case you missed it, I specifically
stated that I won't allow it in the disclaimer section at the beginning.
-Asking where to find this game in a ROM format, or any other illegal
software requests will be ignored.
-Asking me where to find this cartridge.
(Honestly, I wish I knew where to find Atari games, but I have as much of
a hard time finding them as you probably do! Your best bet is to check
online.)
The following types of E-Mail I will accept:
-Suggestions and/or constructive criticism.
-Strategies of your own.
-Any information I may have left out in this version.
-Generally, anything that will help me improve this guide in future revisions!
(Make sure you put "Defender Guide" as your subject line.)
You can reach me at: LarcenTyler7650 (AT) Yahoo (DOT) com
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6. CREDITS
Sure I wrote this, but there are many people who made it possible, so here
they are:
-My mother, for buying the Atari 2600 and passing her love for it onto me.
-Bob Polaro, for his programming of this game.
-Alan Murphy, for designing the graphics for the game.
-Jeff 'CJayC' Veasey, for providing us writers with a place to share our work.
-Atari, for putting out the Atari 2600 as well as distributing this cartridge
in large quantities, so collectors could easily find it in this day.
-AtariAge (www.AtariAge.com) for all the information I needed to confirm while
I was writing this.
-And now, the most important person of all, the one who makes it worth my
while, it's none other than YOU for reading my guide!
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