Eliminator

Sega/Gremlin 1981

The first game programmed for the Sega G80 vector hardware was Eliminator – which exists both in a two player upright and four player cocktail version. So for the Vectrex I’ve initially converted only the two player ROM. Odd game: you have only one shot and if you press fire again your existing shot will be removed instantly. This -weird- behavior made it also into other Sega vector games: Tac/Scan does this, too, and even Zektor does but hides it a bit by allowing four shots on-screen.

All Sega G80s have nice attract modes but this one has an especially elaborate one. The game however is to me not much fun playing alone – and I have never played it with/against someone else so do not know whether that improves it. I think it does or otherwise Sega wouldn’t have expanded this to a four player version even. Probably.

Inputs

During Attract

• Button 2: start 2 player game
• Button 4: start 1 player game

In-Game

• Joystick X or Buttons 1:/2: turn left/right
• Button 3: thrust
• Button 4: fire

Options

• Bonus Ship: 10000 / 20000 / 30000 / None
• Difficulty: Easy / Medium / Hard / Hardest
• Lives: 3 / 4 / 5
• Reset Highscores
• Game Info: ”                           Welcome to Sega/Gremlin’s Eliminator.                This is the two player version so pressing 2: will start a two player game. Playing alone is less fun, I think, but I myself am not overly fond of the whole game setup – the slow drifting with billard-like gameplay, the shots that vanish if you shoot ‘too often’. The latter really annoys me and it does not help that this became a Sega vector staple: e.g. Zektor or Tac/Scan show the same behaviour.                The attract mode of all Sega vectors is quite nice and Eliminator no exception. It uses a few unique features which were easy to do on their hardware: the independently flying and rotating characters, esp. when every single vector falls down, just look nice. “

Localization

//NAME="ELIM2"
//

GERMAN[] = {
    { 0, 0, 0}
};

FRENCH[] = {
    { 0, 0, "                           Bienvenue dans Eliminator de Sega/Gremlin.                Il s'agit de la version à deux joueurs, ce qui signifie qu'appuyer sur la touche 2 permettra de lancer une partie à deux joueurs. Jouer seul est moins amusant selon moi, et à vrai dire je n'aime pas trop la configuration du jeu - avec la lente dérive et des tirs façon table de billard, qui disparaissent si on tire \"trop souvent\". Ce dernier point m'agace vraiment et cela est d'autant plus problématique que c'est devenu une caractéristique de base des jeux vectoriels chez Sega : par exemple, Zektor ou Tac/Scan présentent le même comportement.                En revanche le mode attractif de tous les jeux vectoriels chez Sega est très agréable et Eliminator ne fait pas exception. Il utilise quelques caractéristiques uniques qui ont été faciles à réaliser sur leur matériel : les éléments volant et tournant en toute indépendance, en particulier lorsque chaque vecteur se met à chuter, ont vraiment belle allure.                                                             "}
};

ENGLISH[] = {
    { 0, 0, "                           Welcome to Sega/Gremlin's Eliminator.                This is the two player version so pressing 2: will start a two player game. Playing alone is less fun, I think, but I myself am not overly fond of the whole game setup - the slow drifting with billard-like gameplay, the shots that vanish if you shoot 'too often'. The latter really annoys me and it does not help that this became a Sega vector staple: e.g. Zektor or Tac/Scan show the same behaviour.                The attract mode of all Sega vectors is quite nice and Eliminator no exception. It uses a few unique features which were easy to do on their hardware: the independently flying and rotating characters, esp. when every single vector falls down, just look nice.                                                             "}
};