Star Raiders II is a video game released in 1986 for the Atari 8-bit family as a sequel to 1979's Star Raiders, which was the killer app for the Atari computers. The game was originally developed as part of a tie-in with the movie The Last Starfighter, which featured an arcade game of the same name as part of its plotline. Versions for the Atari 5200 and the Atari 8-bit computers were developed in 1984, although those were never released. Later the tie-in was dropped, and the game converted into a sequel to Star Raiders by changing a number of gameplay elements. The gameplay remained different from the original Star Raiders.
Conversions for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Commodore 64 were published under license by Electric Dreams Software in 1987.
In 2015 it was revealed that a true sequel, also called Star Raiders II, had been under development for some time by Atari programmer Aric Wilmunder. It was nearing completion when he was laid off during the massive downsizing of the company in early 1984. Although the programmer continued talks with Atari after its takeover by Jack Tramiel, no deal was ever forthcoming. The source code, largely complete but not polished for release, was posted publicly in December the same year. This version is far more faithful to the original version in terms of gameplay.
Gameplay
Movie concept
The plot of The Last Starfighter revolves around the latest outbreak in a long-running war between two races. In the past, the Rylan Star League protected themselves from the warlike Ko-Dan through their fleet of advanced "Gunstar" fighters, and the "Frontier", a space-based energy field. Their protection is removed when a member of the League defects to the Ko-Dan cause, destroying the Gunstar base and showing the Ko-Dan how to pass through the Frontier. The movie follows the protagonist Alex Rogan as he crews the remaining Gunstar fighter and defeats the Ko-Dan fleet. Rogan was discovered by the Rylans by his high scores in an arcade game that was actually a Gunstar simulator.
Last Starfighter
The original videogame remained faithful to this basic plotline, standing in for the arcade game in the movie. It expanded on the movie's action by having multiple Ko-Dan fleets attacking the League. Each fleet contained a group of Deckfighters for protection, Destroyers that attacked the cities on League planets, and a single command ship that was responsible for breaching the Frontier. The command ship left the fleet once the Frontier was breached, leaving the Destroyers and Deckfighters to attack.
The game opened with the player in orbit above Rylos, being attacked by the fighters. After defeating this initial force, pressing space opened a display of the local solar system, showing the multiple planets, the Frontier, and any attacking fleets. The joystick is used to move between the various objects on the screen, which can be selected in order to warp to them. Fleets could be attacked at any point, but there was an advantage to attacking them while they were attempting to breach the Frontier; in this case the player immediately faced the command ship in a defenceless state, and destroying it before it burned its way through the Frontier would leave the rest of the fleet stranded on the other side.
In the upper left of the map display was an icon representing a wormhole linking to the Ko-Dan solar system. Selecting this icon as a warp point flew the player to the Ko-Dan system. Ko-Dan fleets were generated by industrial sites on the planets, and flying here allowed attacks on the factories. As these were destroyed the spawn rate of new fleets was reduced, and when all of these were destroyed, the player won the game.
Damage to the ship and energy use were replenished by flying to the local star and orbiting it. This also heated the ship up, to the point where it was possible to melt it. Several trips to and from the star might be needed to fully repair the Gunstar.
This version was never published under this title, although copies did leak out.
Star Raiders II
The original Star Raiders was a graphical version of the classic text-based Star Trek game from the 1970s. The basic outline of Star Trek was to fly between the various "quadrants" in the galaxy and defeat the Klingon ships within. Damage could be repaired and energy topped off at the handful of starbases scattered around the map. This basic outline remained intact in Star Raiders, although updated with graphics, and with the names changed to avoid any tie-in with Star Trek. Combat was vastly improved with a complete 3D flying simulation and real-time combat with the enemy ships.