Bosconian

Bosconian is a multi-directional shooter arcade game that was released by Namco in 1981 and licensed to Midway Games for US manufacture and distribution.

Gameplay
The player controls a ship that can move in eight directions. The ship can fire to both the front and rear. Each round consists of a number of green space stations that must be destroyed to advance to the next. All space stations are alike: each one consists of six cannons arranged in a hexagon, surrounding a red core in the center (accessible either horizontally or vertically, depending on how the station was placed). A station is destroyed by either destroying all six cannons or shooting the core. In later levels, the core begins shooting missiles and can protect itself with a closing door.

Additionally, the player must avoid (or destroy) asteroids, Cosmo-Mines, and a variety of enemy missiles that attempt to collide with the player's ship. Enemies will occasionally launch formation attacks consisting of four enemies and a leader. Destroying the leader will cause all remaining enemies to break formation and fly away. Destroying all ships in the formation is worth extra bonus points. Also, a spy ship appears occasionally, and is worth a random bonus value.

The most notable feature of this game is its use of digitized voice samples, which were first used in Namco's own King and Balloon. The audible messages used in the game are:


 * "Blast off!": Start of a round.
 * "Alert! Alert!": Enemies approaching.
 * "Battle stations!": A formation attack has been launched.
 * "Spy ship sighted!": A spy ship is nearby, which is worth extra points.
 * "Condition red!": The player has taken too long. Enemies appear much more frequently.

A sequel to this game named Blast Off was released in 1989, but only in Japan. It was a vertical scrolling shooter, and had more in common with Namco's own Dragon Spirit than with its predecessor.