This Week In Retro: Moon Patrol (Patreon)

May 1982: One of these days, Irem, BANG, ZOOM, STRAIGHT TO THE MOON!

by Diamond Feit

I have no idea if anyone under the age of 30 even reads my work, but if you were born in the 90s (or later), how many times a day do you think about space? Not just idle wondering about what might be up there, I mean do you regularly anticipate living and working amongst the stars? That might sound like an absurd question to ask now, but when I was a kid, migrating to space in the future seemed plausible.

American astronauts walked on the moon before my life began, but it was still recent-ish news when I was born. Besides, the Apollo 11 mission was, like Neil Armstrong said, "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." It was not the final stop of the space race but a checkpoint along our journey, and I grew up during an era when every space shuttle launch was a media event.

Coupled with the dramatic and rapid increase of computer integration into everyday life, humanity's interstellar future seemed like a foregone conclusion. Not even the 1986 Challenger disaster could dissuade us from that vision, for I clearly remember writing in the fifth grade that I would one day design houses on the lunar surface and not a single person found that idea laughable.

This is relevant because 40 years ago, a little game called Moon Patrol tapped directly into our collective vision of the future. A space shooter like no other, it helped codify a genre of side-scrolling games that would be commonplace in the years to come.

Following the success of Space Invaders in 1978, video games about firing lasers at alien forces were already abundant by 1982. Whether the action was locked to a single screen or scrolled horizontally or vertically, many of these titles focused on piloting a vessel in outer space and battling waves of enemies (or in the case of Asteroids, giant rocks). It helped that the great vacuum of outer space could be easily recreated with a plain black background and a few pixels of light to represent distant stars.

Moon Patrol takes no such shortcut; the action unfolds on the surface of a moon (not necessarily Earth's moon) and uses multi-layered backgrounds to create a sense of depth. There's not much detail in the mountains or spherical buildings that the player passes, but everything is brightly colored and pleasing to the eye. Likewise, the star of the game is a terrestrial vehicle that drives rather than flies, a six-wheeled buggy that bounces as it scoots forward, all while a jaunty tune plays on a loop.

Moon Patrol may feature driving, but it is not a driving game. In practice, it controls more like Super Mario Bros. than Super Mario Kart. A simple binary joystick allows players to accelerate and decelerate, with faster times leading to higher scores. The vehicle can jump into the air at the press of a button, an important function as the buggy is rather fragile and the lunar surface is uneven, marked with small pits and rocks which will destroy the hero's rover on contact. Higher speeds allow for larger jumps, though a giant leap can just as easily clear one danger and crash into another behind it.

Beyond these natural hazards, flying saucers and other alien craft can attack from above, along the ground, or even from behind the player. One button operates both of the vehicle's fixed cannons, simultaneously firing short-range shots in front of the cab and long-range bolts upwards. The buggy makes for a large target, though like in Space Invaders, the player's shots are a defensive aid which can block enemy fire.

Moon Patrol is a simple game both visually and mechanically. It is easy to understand and relatively easy to play. The timer counts up, not down, and only affects the score at the end of a level. The difficulty curve is gentle, applying pressure gradually over time rather than overwhelming players from the start. While threats can come from any direction, the game includes a warning system advising players of the next hazard, and mashing the fire button is a valid strategy when facing ground and airborne dangers as both cannons shoot at the same rate.

Moon Patrol was a hit for Japanese developer Irem back in 1982, and Atari ported the game to all available home consoles and personal computers. There never was a "Mars Patrol" or any other sequel, but Moon Patrol would reappear many years later in various arcade game compilations, and as of this writing it is available as part of Hamster's Arcade Archives series. An "exclusive reimagining" titled Moon Patrol: The Milky Way Chronicles was announced in 2018 for the Intellivison Amico, a totally real video game console that, despite multiple delays, will surely be released any day now.

As a video game, Moon Patrol is a pleasant enough way to pass the time, but its impact on the medium is larger than you might expect. Moon Patrol was only the second project Takashi Nishiyama worked on while at Irem; his next game would be Spartan X a.k.a. Kung Fu Master, a side-scrolling action game that replaces moon buggies and UFOs with martial artists. Nishiyama would depart Irem for Capcom and continue to develop his ideas for combat-based games, leading him to direct the original Street Fighter. In the late 80s, Nishiyama changed jobs again, this time landing at SNK where he helped develop the arcade/console hybrid NEO•GEO and created the legendary Fatal Fury. While none of these games are direct follow-ups to one other, it's safe to say that Nishiyama's career might have gone in a very different direction if Moon Patrol had bombed, and I cannot imagine what the modern world of video games would look like without his later contributions.

Likewise, it's been hard for me to reconcile how I imagined the future as a child versus how the future has turned out (so far). Human beings going to space en masse just seemed like it was a given for such a long time, yet now I'm forced to wonder if regular people will ever set foot on the moon in my lifetime. Then again, if life on Earth has taught me anything, it's that the future can change in a hurry. In 1982, I certainly never would have believed that advancements in computer technology would eventually lead to a global information network which is perpetually online and available to everyone via a palm-sized device that even a child can use. Who's to say that the future won't change again and by 2062 those lunar condos I imagined might become a reality? I don't think they'll ask me to draw the blueprints, but I'd love to attend an open house.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.