Bosconian: Difference between revisions

'''Bosconian''' is a multi-directional [[shooter]] arcade game that was released by [[Namco]] in [[1981]] and licensed to [[Midway Games]] for U.S. manufacture and distribution. It runs on Namco [[Galaga]] hardware (three Zilog Z80 microprocessors running at 3.125 MHz), and was the last of three pre-M6809 games from the company whose score displays did not roll over at 1,000,000.  After Namco succeeded in improving their own [[Rally-X]] with the release of [[New Rally-X]], Namco investigated to what other forms of gameplay could be developed to exploit the hardware that New Rally-X ran on.  The result was Bosconian. One notable feature of the game is its use of digitized voice samples, which Namco had first developed for their own [[King and Balloon]].  Another is that it was the first arcade game to offer a continue feature, which can be turned off by the arcade operator if he wants to prevent overspending.

How the Bosconian Wars started, no one knows.  The Federal Council suffered massive losses to the Bosconian enemy's seemingly impenetrable enemy base fortress.  But the Federal Council's luck was about to change.  A daring plan to send a spy in among the Bosconians finally paid off.  The building plans for the enemy bases were finally revealed.  The Council set about constructing a prototype Star Fighter, which was armed with the capability to exploit the enemy bases' weaknesses.  With only so much material, and so little time, they could only prepare a few of these precious ships.  In order to attract a little attention as possible, they would go in one at a time, and try to launch a strike against the enemy base in each sector of space before the enemy could realize what was happening and retaliate.  The Bosconian War was about the close... ''(Note: This text does not appear in the attract modes of the game.)''