Moon Patrol

Overview

Moon Patrol is one of the most iconic arcade games of the early ’80s, developed by Irem and distributed in North America by Williams Electronics. First released in 1982, this classic introduced the groundbreaking parallax scrolling technique, giving players a sense of depth as the background layers moved at varying speeds—one of the first full implementations of this feature in side-scrolling games. Here we have its arcade version ready to be played online, in your browser (HTML5).

Anyway, in Moon Patrol, players take control of a moon buggy running and gunning through a treacherous lunar surface, dodging craters, rocks, and enemy fire. The game’s growing difficulty and diverse challenges made it a hit in both arcades and home systems, including Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Apple II, Commodore 64, and MSX.

Despite hardware limitations, the Atari 2600 version stood out for its smooth gameplay and rare inclusion of a soundtrack—a feature controlled by the console’s difficulty switches. Moon Patrol‘s enduring appeal is not only due to its technical innovations but also its challenging yet captivating design, crafted under the direction of Takashi Nishiyama, who later created the legendary Kung-Fu Master.

Gameplay

In Moon Patrol, players guide a constantly moving moon buggy from one station to another across the lunar surface. The vehicle can accelerate, slow down, jump over obstacles, and fire shots both forward and upward. The game features 25 checkpoints, marked by letters A to Z, serving as respawn points. Every five checkpoints represent a new stage, with a bonus awarded for completing stages under a par time.

Obstacles include rocks, pits, and UFOs, which either shoot at the player or bombard the ground. As the game progresses, additional threats like tanks, landmines, carnivorous plants, and rocket cars increase the difficulty. Players start with the Beginner Course and can challenge the more difficult Champion Course after completing it.

Controls

• Arrow Keys – Movement
• X – (Button A) Shoots
• Z – (Button C) Shoots
• S – (Button B) Shoots
• Enter – (Start) (Pause)
• Attention: these controls are default. Hover your mouse into the lower part of the screen and a control bar will show up. You can set the controls in there, if you want.

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Moon Patrol gameplays, tips or walkthroughs

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