+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | D E F E N D E R | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ GAME: DEFENDER PLATFORM: ARCADE GENRE: ARCADE SHOOTER CREATOR: WILLIAMS Copyright 1980 AUTHOR OF THIS FAQ: Kevin Butler AKA War Doc E-MAIL: kevinb(at)technologist(dot)com FAQ VERSION: 1.03 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS UNIT I: INTRODUCTION 1. Legal Stuff 2. Version Information 3. Acknowledgements 4. Welcome 5. Overview UNIT II: GAME INFORMATION 6. The Game 6.1 The Controls 6.2 The Playing Fields 6.3 Scoring UNIT III: STRATEGIES 7. Playing the Game UNIT IV: CONCLUSION 8. Conclusion _______________________________________________________________________________ To find a particular chapter or subchapter do the following: 1. Highlight the chapter or subchapter name you wish to find. 2. Press CTRL-C 3. Press CTRL-F 4. Press CTRL-V 5. Press CTRL-F 5. You will arrive at the desired chapter or subchapter. _______________________________________________________________________________ ************** ********************************* U N I T I ********************************** ************** +=================+ | 1. LEGAL STUFF |============================================================ +=================+ This guide may not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advanced permission from the author. Use of this guide on any other web sit or as part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. All content in this guide is Copyright 2003 by Kevin Butler. Only the sites listed below have permission to publish this work or to display it: www.gamefaqs.com www.cheats.de faqs.ign.com If you wish to put this guide on your site, e-mail me and ask. Save yourself the headache of putting up with lawsuits and whatnot because you failed to ask a simple "Can I post your guide on ?". If you wish to use info in this guide, please acknowledge that you have done so. If you see this guide on any other site then the one listed above, please e-mail me. If you wish to ask questions or give input to this guide, please e-mail me. Just have Defender as the subject so I know it isn't another kooky vendor trying to sell me hair gel or another XXX site telling me I have new friends. +=========================+ | 2. VERSION INFORMATION |==================================================== +=========================+ Version 1.0 8/14/03: A guide is born. Version 1.01 8/17/03: Fixed TOC. Version 1.02 8/28/03: Fixed a couple of errors. Version 1.03 1/25/04: Fixed up a few things due to reader input. +======================+ | 3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |======================================================= +======================+ The following are a list of people or organizations that have made this FAQ possible: My wonderful family (who has had to put up with the tapping on the keyboard) Williams for making a great arcade game GameFAQ's for putting up this FAQ jjt_defender@yahoo.com for his valuable input. +=============+ | 4. WELCOME |================================================================ +=============+ Welcome to my FAQ for Defender. Since the game has you continuously playing through waves until all your men are killed, there is no walkthrough per se. Instead it will be broken up into the game itself and strategies for survival. Input is appreciated along with constructive criticism. If you wish to e-mail me thoughts on this FAQ, better ways of doing things, other strategies, etc., feel free. Make sure you put Defender as the subject. If you don't, I'm liable to discard the e-mail as spam. +==============+ | 5. OVERVIEW |=============================================================== +==============+ Defender was created by a company that was, up to that time, more known for its pinball machines then electronic arcade machines. A couple of years previously, Williams attempted to enter the arcade market but the game flopped badly. Defender was different. It was the first game to feature not only the joystick control, but five buttons to do various things. At first, people were leery of playing this game and those that did found it to be very difficult. It must have been the difficult nature, though, that started the wave of popularity for this game. It was to become one of Williams best time sellers ever and established Williams as a company to be reckoned with in the video game world. The premise of the game was simple: Make sure that you keep the humans safe on the planets surface. Of course, there are a lot of enemies around to make that job difficult. In addition to complexity, Defender was also the first to feature the "wrap-around" screen. This basically meant you could fly your ship either way without reaching the edge of the screen. This gave the illusion of a never-ending flight. Of course, your view was only a small part of this area. Good luck at dealing with the hazardous in keeping the humans safe. *************** ******************************** U N I T II ********************************** *************** +==============+ | 6. THE GAME |=============================================================== +==============+ Defender is a two-dimensional, shooter style game. You have at your fingers the most advanced fighter in the arsenal. With its array of weapons and the ability to maneuver quickly, this fighter is ideal for dealing with the enemy threats. In addition, you can respond quickly to any threats by quickly reversing your motion and taking the quickest route to deal with said threat. You also can fly continuously in one direction or the other to make yourself a harder target to hit. Be warned, though, that if you lose all ten humans, the planet will explode and you will be out in space against some pretty aggressive enemy units. This is definitely a game of only the fittest survive. To think, you volunteered for this duty. ____________________ / 6.1 The Controls /__________________________________________________________ -------------------- The controls on this game are pretty hard. It will take a lot of practice to get used to them. That is because you have five buttons you must keep track of and use at all times. - A two-way joystick for moving up and down - A thrust button - A fire button - A reverse button - A smart bomb button - A hyperspace button __________________________ / 6.2 The Playing Fields /____________________________________________________ -------------------------- Defender involves battling either on the planet or in space if you lose all the humans. The screen itself is a never-ending world since it "wrap-around" so there are no edges. You only see what is within your limited view but you can see everything else via your radar. I have included an example of what the playing screen looks like: +---------------+-----------+-------+----------------+--------------+ | \___ FIGHTERS| | -- | | | | \___ LEFT |- | YOUR VIEW | | | |- |\ /\ /\_/\ /\_ _/| | | 250 |- | \/\__/ \/\_/ \_/ \/\/\___/ | | |____________^__|___________|_______|________________|______________| | | | | SMART BOMBS | | LEFT | | /\_____ | | +-----/ | | | | +--+ +--+ | | / \ / \ | | / \ / \ | | / \ / \ | | / \ / \ | | / \_______________/ \ | | / \| | / | | / | | / | |__________________/ | | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ You control your fighter through this screen. _______________ / 6.3 Scoring /_______________________________________________________________ --------------- Scoring in this game is relatively simple. Lander : 150 points Mutant : 150 points Bomber : 250 points Pod : 1000 points Bomber : 250 points Baiter : 200 points Swarmer: 150 points 500 points for saving a human from a Lander. Bonus at the end of each wave of Humans Left X 100. You get a bonus ship and smart bomb every 10,000 points. **************** ******************************** U N I T III ********************************* **************** +======================+ | 7. PLAYING THE GAME |======================================================= +======================+ You start the game in the middle of the screen. You can look at your radar to see where the various enemies are. Get to learn the sounds of the game because they are an important clue as to what is going on out of your viewing range. - First of all, learn how to use the buttons with proficiency. You don't want to be hunting around for the smart bomb or thrust button when you are in the middle of a firefight. Practice is what will make you proficient. - Learn to use your radar screen and after a while you will only look at the viewable area briefly to take care of business. Each enemy has a unique color on the radar so you should be able to easily identify what they are. In addition, you will also learn how each enemy moves around. This will definitely become a great benefit in the later waves. - As I've already mentioned, listen to the sounds of the game. When you hear a high-pitched chatter, that means a Lander has picked up a human in order to create a mutant. Use your radar and look for the green shape going straight up; that's the lander. Try to get over there as quickly as possible. Just shoot the Lander, not the human it has taken. When you hear what sound like something being put together, that means a Lander has become a Mutant. - Once you shoot the Lander, your job isn't over yet. If the height is too great, the human will fall and die on impact. Fortunately, your fighter is equipped for such emergencies. All you have to do is fly over the human and your fighter will pick them up. Anytime you scrape against the ground, you will set the human down. Some players continuously ride around with a human like this to prevent the planet from exploding. - The planet will only explode when all ten humans are dead. They you will have to go through five waves of nothing but mutants and the other regular enemies until you are back to a planet again. Mutants are very dangerous to deal with because they not only tend to swarm, they also fire a lot of shots toward your fighter. Of course, real good players just shoot all the humans so they can have the challenge of going through these "mutant" waves. - If you take too long on a wave, a saucer shaped enemy called a Briter will appear. The Briter is much quicker then your fighter and it has the tendency to fire pretty accurate shots. Try to clear waves as fast as possible. - Use your smart bombs only when your viewing area is crowded with enemies. A lot of players like to get all the Pods into their viewing screen then touch off the smart bomb. A quick way to get a few thousand points. Another use is to break open the pods so that Swarmers are all over then touch off the smart bomb. Again, more points. - Speaking of Swarmers, they can outrun your fighter. One of the tactics to "throw" them off is to reverse quickly a couple of times. This disorients briefly and may even give you a chance to pick off a few of them. - Use hyperspace only when you are in a totally desperate situation (like getting swarmed by Mutants or Swarmers). More times then not, the hyper- space will put you somewhere else but destroy your fighter in the process. - Watch out for the bombers. Although they travel slowly, they have a bad habit of leaving strings of bombs. If you are not paying attention, you may become another statistic if you attempt to fly through them. - You can fly through and under the terrain. Use this to your advantage when maneuvering around. - Since you "wrap-around" the screen, this gives you a little more maneuvering room. However, keep looking at your radar because the enemy that disappears off the left side will show up on the right side. Also, shots do not wrap around the edge. - Since you get a free fighter and smart bomb at 10,000 points, that should be your constant goal. As the waves get higher, though, things move a lot faster making even getting 10,000 points a challenge. _______________________________________________________________________________ jjt_defender@yahoo.com states: - The most free fighters you can have is 255 displayed and smart bombs are at 254. If you roll over these two value, you will end up with only the fighter you are using and no smart bombs in the inventory. - The highest score you can have is 999,999. After that, it will roll over to 0 again. You don't get any more ships or smartbombs after one million points until you get to a certain WAVE depending on the gamming setup. You will then you start getting fighters and smart bombs again. **************** ******************************** U N I T IV ********************************* **************** +================+ | 8. CONCLUSION |============================================================= +================+ I remember when I first played this game. It was very frustrating because of all the buttons one had to learn about. It wasn't enough just to have an idea of where they were, you had to instinctively be able to use them without even thinking. This was part of the mystique of this game, hard enough to keep you interested but not so hard as to make you give up. Replayability was great because the same things didn't happen twice even though the basic premise of the game remained the same. One could spend a lot of quarters just to get comfortable with this game and a lot more to at least get a degree of proficiency. Williams definitely did a good job on this video game. Un- fortunately, it is very rare to find this machine anywhere. However, through the miracle of emulation, a whole new generation is realizing what we "old" folks enjoyed those many years ago. In addition, www.shockwave.com is bringing many of these classic games back. Check out their site to see what ones are there. I hope this guide helps you in being able to get the most amount of gameplay for this game. If you do have other ideas or thoughts, please e-mail me and share them. Who knows, maybe I'll start a Q&A Chapter in this guide if enough people ask the same questions. Anyway, thank you again for reading this guide. To see other FAQ's I have written please go to: http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/recognition/32691.html ~~~ No trees were harmed in the making of this FAQ ~~~