Missile Command 3D
More actions
| Missile Command 3D | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| VR/AR | Virtual Reality |
| Developer | Virtuality (Virtuality Entertainment) |
| Publisher | Atari Corporation |
| Platform | Atari Jaguar |
| Device | Atari Jaguar; Jaguar VR headset (cancelled, prototype only) |
| Type | Game |
| Genre | Shooter, Arcade |
| Input Device | Jaguar controller, ProController |
| Game Mode | Single-player |
| Release Date | December 12, 1995 (North America) |
| Price | US$59.99 (suggested retail price, 1995) |
Missile Command 3D is a 1995 shooter for the Atari Jaguar console, published by Atari Corporation and designed and produced by the British virtual reality company Virtuality (Virtuality Entertainment). It updates Atari's 1980 arcade game Missile Command and contains three versions on one cartridge: "Original Missile Command", "3D Missile Command" and "Virtual Missile Command".[1][2]
The game was built for the Jaguar VR, a head-mounted display that Virtuality was developing for Atari. The headset was cancelled and never sold, but the released cartridge still contains code for it: according to its programmer Martin Brownlow, a prototype headset with the right ROM can be used to play both the 3D and Virtual modes.[3][4] According to the fan archive JagCube, it is the only Jaguar game that works with the headset prototypes, and both of those modes enable head tracking.[5] In 2022 the game was re-released in the compilation Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration.[6]
Gameplay
All three versions use three missile bases; in the Original and Virtual versions they protect six cities.[2] Business Wire's launch release described the 3D and Virtual options as taking place in "three-dimensional worlds found undersea, in the clouds and in outer space".[1]
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Original Missile Command | A version of the arcade game in which the player aims a cross hair and fires from the left, center or right base with the C, B and A buttons. Each base holds 10 missiles, and a bonus city is awarded every 10,000 points. The screen can be mapped onto a Lynx console, an arcade cabinet or a TV set and then zoomed and tilted with the keypad.[2] |
| 3D Missile Command | The game is viewed from the ground looking up, and the sky is wider than the field of view, so a radar display marks where attacks are coming from.[7][2] Each surviving city gains technology levels and production units, which are spent on repairs, upgrades and special weapons and decide which type of defense missile is produced.[2] Brownlow said this mode was Atari's design and was written in about two weeks.[3] |
| Virtual Missile Command | A first-person mode viewed from one of the three bases, with a laser that hits anything in the sight and missiles that can be detonated early. Destroyed enemy craft usually leave power-ups, and the three stages (an undersea base, cloud cities and an orbiting space station) each have their own bosses. The manual lists the Easy difficulty as "one level only"; the Atari Gaming Headquarters reviewer noted that the space stage cannot be reached on Easy.[2][8] |
Brownlow said the Virtual mode was designed "to draw the player into the VR": nothing attacks from below until the third stage, a progression he described as "ramped around the user getting better with the headset".[3] He also said he could find no way to keep the mode centered on missiles once it moved into "immersive 3D", so the laser became the main weapon against smaller enemies.[3] If a headset is attached, extra options appear in the menus and the keypad works differently: left and right on the D-pad switch between bases instead of the 1 and 3 keys, because the D-pad is easier to use without looking.[3]
Development
Atari and Virtuality began working together on a home VR system in early 1994, according to JagCube.[5] On 17 March 1995, The Independent reported that Virtuality had signed a licensing agreement to develop VR games and software for the Jaguar. The deal called for two VR games and followed a separate agreement, signed the year before, to develop a head-mounted display for the console. Virtuality, which retained the rights to the technology, said the headset would be in shops for Christmas 1995.[9] Virtuality's chief executive at the time was Jonathan Waldern.[9]
The game's manual states that it was "designed and produced by Virtuality Entertainment Ltd." It credits Martin Brownlow as programmer, Jim Tripp as Virtuality's producer, John Skruch as Atari's producer, Robert Powers for the design of the 3D mode, and Dale Robins for the music.[2] Before the Jaguar game, Brownlow had written two Virtuality arcade games, Virtuality Boxing and Buggy Ball, and had worked on Sega's NetMerc VR arcade game. Missile Command 3D was his first published home console game, and he said it took six months to make.[3]
In the 1997 interview Brownlow said he had been "pretty skeptical" when asked to make a VR Missile Command. He described the Jaguar as hard to program, citing the 4 KB of GPU memory and an undocumented Blitter timing bug. He blamed Atari's demand for texture-mapped graphics for the game's frame rate, saying textures were "at least 8x slower than flat shaded". He also said that a separate arcade version of the game for Virtuality's own systems was programmed by Simon Fox, "based heavily on the Jag game".[3] Asked whether he preferred the name Missile Command 3D or Missile Command 2000, Brownlow said he liked Missile Command VR and complained that Atari had made him change the name around. He added that the high score table for the 3D mode is still labeled "PLUS HIGH SCORES" from a time when that mode was called Missile Command Plus.[3]
Jaguar VR
Atari announced the Jaguar VR at CES in 1995 and demonstrated it at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) that year. According to Vice, the headset demos at E3 featured a 3D version of Missile Command. Vice also quoted Next Generation magazine's E3 coverage, which reported that the system being demonstrated was Virtuality's own arcade system "disguised as Jaguar VR". The article says the companies tried to build a headset that would cost US$300, but the partnership broke apart and only a few prototypes survived.[10]
JagCube, which documents surviving hardware, describes a lower-resolution red prototype that did not satisfy Atari and a revised blue prototype with a higher-resolution display, infrared tracking sensors and extra IPD adjustment. A tracking unit connected to the Jaguar's second port and sent the headset's position to the console.[5] By the time Next Generation reviewed the game in April 1996, it described it as "originally planned for use with Atari's recently canceled HMD peripheral".[4]
Release
| Release | Date | Platforms | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original cartridge | 12 December 1995 (North America) | Atari Jaguar | Published by Atari Corporation; suggested retail price US$59.99; rated K-A[1] |
| Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration | 11 November 2022 | Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Epic Games Store, Atari VCS | Compilation by Atari and Digital Eclipse; one of nine Jaguar games included[6][11] |
Atari announced the cartridge on 12 December 1995 as available in stores nationwide.[1] Atari Gaming Headquarters noted that Atari released the cartridge even though the headset it was meant for had been cancelled.[8]
Reception
| Publication | Score | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Next Generation (April 1996) | 2/5 | Called Virtual Missile Command "perhaps the best of the three"[4] |
| Game Zero Magazine (March 1996) | 27/50 | Combined score of two reviewers (9.0 and 18.0)[12] |
| Atari Gaming Headquarters | 8 overall | Reviewer Patrick Holstine[8] |
| Iain Laskey review | 75% | Republished on the author's website in 2012[7] |
Reviews were mixed. Next Generation wrote that once the novelty of 3D wore off the game was "still the exact same as the original" and grew tiresome.[4] GamePro said the classic version looked like the arcade original but the two newer versions were boring and did not add to the visuals, audio or gameplay.[13] Patrick Holstine of Atari Gaming Headquarters wrote that the original version was "not all that well-done" and called the 3D mode "easily the most boring game on the cartridge", but considered Virtual Missile Command "the most innovative game on the cart".[8] Iain Laskey wrote that the game "was originally designed for use with the aborted VR headset project" and that playing the 3D versions made him wish Atari had persevered with VR.[7]
Both Game Zero Magazine reviewers said they had played Virtual mode on the VR headset. One wrote that it was "really smooth" on the headset and choppy on a television; the other agreed that the mode "suffers when only played on a TV" but called the cartridge a good buy for fans of classic arcade games.[12]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Arcade favorite receives new mission; Atari Corp. launches "Missile Command 3D" for Jaguar 64". Business Wire. Atari Corporation. 1995-12-12. https://web.archive.org/web/20180612142340/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Arcade+favorite+receives+new+mission%3b+Atari+Corp.+launches+%22Missile...-a017847908. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 "Missile Command 3D game manual". Atari Corporation (scan on Internet Archive). 1995. https://archive.org/details/Missile_Command_3D_1995_Atari. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Clay Halliwell (1997-03-27). "Martin Brownlow Interview: The programmer of MC3D speaks". Jaguar Explorer Online, vol. 1, no. 1. White Space Publishers. https://web.archive.org/web/20060516025112/https://www.atarimax.com/freenet/freenet_material/6.16and32-BitComputersSupportArea/8.OnlineMagazines/showarticle.php?637. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "Missile Command 3D (review)". Next Generation, issue 16 (April 1996). Imagine Media. 1996-04. https://archive.org/details/nextgen-issue-016. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Jaguar VR Information!". JagCube. https://jagcube.atari.org/jaguarvr.html. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Damien McFerran (2022-10-27). "Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration Trailer Shows Jaguar Games In Action". Time Extension. https://www.timeextension.com/news/2022/10/atari-50-the-anniversary-celebration-trailer-shows-jaguar-games-in-action. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Iain Laskey (2012-12-08). "Missile Command 3D - Review". laskey.co.uk. https://web.archive.org/web/20160303223354/http://laskey.co.uk/missile-command-3d-review/. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Patrick Holstine. "AGH Jaguar Review: Missile Command 3-D". Atari Gaming Headquarters. https://web.archive.org/web/20010303092917/http://www.atarihq.com/reviews/jaguar/missile_command_3d.html. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Mathew Horsman (1995-03-17). "Virtuality ties up Atari deal". The Independent. https://web.archive.org/web/20160416044835/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/virtuality-ties-up-atari-deal-1611632.html. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ Ernie Smith (2017-02-03). "Virtual Insanity: Atari's Last-Ditch Attempt to Save the Jaguar". Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/virtual-insanity-ataris-last-ditch-attempt-to-save-the-jaguar/. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ "Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration". Steam. Valve. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1919470/Atari_50_The_Anniversary_Celebration/. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "The Final Word game review: Missile Command 3-D". Game Zero Magazine. 1996-03. http://www.gamezero.com/team-0/final_word/jaguar/missile_command_3-d.html. Retrieved 2026-10-07.
- ↑ "Missile Command 3D (review)". GamePro, issue 80 (March 1996), p. 68. 1996-03. https://archive.org/details/GamePro_Issue_080_March_1996. Retrieved 2026-10-07.