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Box artwork for Polaris.
Box artwork for Polaris.
Polaris
Developer(s)Taito Corporation
Publisher(s)Taito Corporation
Year released1980
System(s)Arcade, Atari 2600
Japanese titleポラリス
Genre(s)Shooter
Players1-2
ModesSingle player, Multiplayer
LinksPolaris ChannelSearchSearch
This guide is for the 1980 arcade game. For the 1981 and 1983 CoCo and ZX Spectrum games, see Polaris (1981) and Polaris (1983).
Polaris marquee

Polaris is a fixed shooter arcade game, that was released by Taito Corporation, in 1980; it utilizes an Intel 8080 microprocessor (running up at 2 MHz), with discrete circuitry and a Texas Instruments SN-76477 for sound. The player must use one 8-way joystick, to take up control of a submarine (which is the eponymous "Polaris") at the bottom of the screen, with a single button to make it fire missiles into the air at the various enemies - as small bombs are worth 10 points, while large bombs are worth 30, small planes are worth 50, while small boats are worth 100, and large boats (and planes) are worth a random amount of points. However, the red asterisk-like mines that the boats shall occasionally drop cannot be destroyed; Polaris will also receive an extra life at 5000 points by default. The screenshots below, much like Space Chaser, are also inaccurate, due to the imperfect colour emulation in MAME.