Tac/Scan

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Description

Enemy airships are approaching your command base! You need to fly your five plane squadron into battle to defend it. You control a squadron of five ships at the bottom of the screen, your goal is to earn as many points as possible by destroying the various enemies which will be attacking. If one of the ships in your squadron is hit by enemy fire, it will be destroyed. The game ends when all five ships have been destroyed. As you progress through the game, you will occasionally have the chance to replenish missing ships. Everytime you complete a round by shooting ten enemies, an extra ship will float by on the screen. You can add this ship to your squadron by catching it in an empty space in the formation. Every time you complete four rounds, the game will advance to the next level with increased difficulty!

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "Tac-Scan" -- Atari 2600 title

Part of the Following Group

• Genre: Scrolling shoot 'em up

User Reviews

There are no reviews for this game.

Critic Reviews

Electronic Fun with Computers & Games	Atari 2600	Oct, 1983	3 out of 4	75
All Game Guide	Arcade	1998		70
All Game Guide	Atari 2600	1998		50
Woodgrain Wonderland	Atari 2600	Jun 26, 2018	C-	42
The Video Game Critic	Atari 2600	Apr 10, 2005	D	25

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Trivia

Cancelled ports

A VIC-20 version of Tac/Scan was also commissioned by Sega, but never published. Apparently one copy of the unreleased game was kept by the programmer, Joe Sengir, so chances are that this prototype will one day be released.

Similarly, versions for Intellivision, Atari computers, the Atari 5200 and the Colecovision were mentioned in contemporary games press. The Colecovision port was handled by Nuvatec and its programmers Jim Wolf and Joe Clark but development was halted by Coleco after two stages had been converted.

Difficulty

From the instruction manual:

Tac/Scan has 15 "theoretical" levels of difficulty. We say theoretical because the highest anyone at SEGA has managed is level 7.

Milestone

Tac/Scan was Sega's first self-published game for home formats.

Information also contributed by Игги Друге