Bosconian

Bosconian Arcade Game

Bosconian was created by Namco in 1981, but manufactured and distributed by Midway in the USA. In 1983, it won an award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Coin-op Game. Bosconian was a multi-directional scrolling game that was one of the first to feature free-roaming. The object of the game was to blow up as many enemy ships and enemy base stations as possible. The players ship could movie in eight different directions and fire forward and backwards. Each station consisted of six cannons, surrounding a central core, and shooting the central core would destroy the station.

Bosconian Arcade Game Cabinet

In addition, the player had radar that would allow them to now only see where the base stations were located, but also the movement of enemy ship formations. Other obstacles included asteroids, mines, missiles, spy ship, and kamikaze enemies. Technically, Bosoconian had no end. It could be played indefinitely, with the final round (round 255) rolling back to round 0 if the player still had lives left. The game was popular enough to warrant a number of spin-offs and clones, and could even be found in the 2000's as part of the Jakk's Pacific TV Game controller.