This Week In Retro: Zaxxon (Patreon)

January 1982: Take off every 'ZAXX'!!

by Diamond Feit

Here's a hot take to keep everyone warm during these oh-so frigid days of early January: The relentless pursuit of "realism" is killing the medium of video games. I understand why it appeals to so many people, as I yearn to see a working holodeck just as much as the next science-fiction fan, but this incessant push towards higher and higher resolution graphics won't ever cross the threshold from "artificial" to "authentic." It's Zeno's Paradox meets the uncanny valley.

Instead of pouring billions of dollars into that impossible dream, I wish developers would instead focus on what kinds of new experiences games could deliver to players, because therein lies the true secret to captivating audiences. Fancy graphics certainly turn heads and (used to) sell magazines, but all the polygons in the universe can't compete with a genuine emotional connection. Sure, there were plenty of PlayStation 1 games that astonished me with their three-dimensional offerings, but there was nothing "realistic" about the way Resident Evil looked; I forged a connection with that game out of fear, and as such, I will love it for the rest of my life.

40 years ago this month, Sega released an arcade game that dabbled in "realism" despite its fully fictional premise of outer space combat. Blasting enemies in front of a star-filled background was already old-hat in 1982, with countless vertically or horizontally-oriented action games offering such an experience. However, Sega's Zaxxon turned the genre on its ear by tilting the graphics at an angle, giving the space-based shooter a unique presentation never before seen in arcades.

In Zaxxon, players steer a small spacecraft into a heavily-armed fortress, squeezing their vessel in-between obstacles and destroying both ground-based and flying hostiles. The goal is to face off against the eponymous Zaxxon, a giant robot armed with a homing missile. Zaxxon is not a "boss" as it cannot be defeated, but successfully countering its attack will force it to retreat, and the player continues to another round of fortresses.

Two things about Zaxxon make it stand out amongst its contemporaries at the arcades. First, its aforementioned angular aesthetics create the illusion that players are flying through a three-dimensional environment, one that requires careful navigation as brick walls are just as deadly as enemy fire to the hero's vessel. The ship even casts a shadow on the ground below, acting as a visual anchor to show players exactly where their fighter is located relative to the surface (an on-screen altimeter also reinforces the importance of Z-axis movement).

The other major factor in Zaxxon feeling unlike any other game is the nature of the controls. The cabinet uses a joystick and a single fire button, though the stick itself is designed to look more like an actual aircraft instrument rather than a simple sphere atop a rod. More importantly, it operates just like the yoke on a real aircraft, so pushing forward on the stick moves the ship lower, while pulling back moves the ship higher. This is so counter-intuitive that the cabinet panel has illustrations surrounding the stick perpetually reminding players that up is down and down is up.

I know I opened this essay with a diatribe against "realism" but in this case, I think forcing players to cope with proper aerodynamics makes Zaxxon more memorable. Even if my first instinct at the time was to push a joystick in the direction I want to move, just like every other game, Zaxxon insisted my instincts were wrong. It didn't mold me into a flight sim enthusiast, but it taught me a valuable lesson, one that video games continue to embrace to this day; when I skydive at the beginning of every Fortnite match, pressing forward tilts my character nose-first towards the surface.

We now have a catch-all term to summarize games that use a tilted perspective to communicate three-dimensional spaces: Isometric. That word has become so commonplace its original, specific meaning has become irrelevant; I couldn't tell you if Zaxxon is dimetric, trimetric, or some other flavor of axonometric projection because I don't own a slide rule. What's important is that Zaxxon's innovations became standard for the medium, and even with all the advancements made in the last 40 years, video games still use its perspective tricks today.

For its time, however, Zaxxon was a remarkable example of making the most of two-dimensional sprites to convince players they were truly invading an outer space stronghold and facing off against a cybernetic behemoth. Zaxxon was also a hit for Sega, one that was ported to all the home consoles and personal computers of the early 80s—the most faithful of these being to the Colecovision, though Sega's own SG-1000 version tries its best.

Zaxxon even had a board game adaptation, one where the player tokens can raise and lower their altitude as needed, and the famous villain is a solid plastic model that dwarfs every other piece in the set. Before the Transformers took over my life in the mid-80s, that Zaxxon model was my go-to robot toy, whether I was playing the board game or just using my imagination.

Zaxxon got a couple sequels before the brand was quietly retired, but scrolling outer space shooters never went away. Instead, the genre took on more dynamic forms such as the first-person perspective. Atari's Star Wars recreated the thrill of the Death Star trench run using vector graphics one year after Zaxxon, putting players directly into Luke Skywalker's cockpit. Nearly two decades later, Sega would revisit the subject in the Star Wars Trilogy arcade cabinet, this time with actual color graphics and booming stereo sound pumped into the built-in seat.

We don't need a new Zaxxon. Developers continue to craft dozens of scrolling shooters every year, be they set in outer space or some other fantastic environment; anyone looking for that kind of entertainment has enough options to never feel satiated. Instead, my hope is that the next time I go to the arcade or an indie game event, I get the pleasure of an unexpected encounter. I'm not asking developers to reinvent the wheel, but if movies can still surprise me despite their much-longer legacy, I believe games can manage to wow me just as much.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch. Yes, you can play Fortnite with me.