What happens when a missile battery is destroyed?

When a missile battery is destroyed by an enemy missile, you can no longer fire from that position for the rest of the game. This makes it harder to defend that side of the screen.

How do you earn bonus cities?

You are awarded a bonus city for every 10,000 points you score. This is the only way to replace cities that have been destroyed in previous waves.

What is the difference between the three missile batteries?

The three batteries are located at the bottom left, center, and right of the screen. The game automatically fires from the battery closest to your mouse cursor, so their position dictates the origin and travel time of your shots.

MIRVs are special missiles that split into multiple, independently-targeted warheads as they fall. They are one of the most dangerous threats as they can saturate an area with projectiles.

How is the bonus score calculated at the end of a wave?

At the end of each wave, you receive 100 bonus points for each city you have remaining and 5 bonus points for every unused anti-missile shot.

Does Atari Missile Command have an ending?

No, Atari Missile Command is an endless game. The waves continue to get faster and more difficult until all of your cities are inevitably destroyed.

Why do some enemy missiles move faster than others?

The game features different enemy projectile types that travel at various speeds. This design forces you to constantly assess threats and prioritize which targets to intercept first.

Atari Missile Command

4.8(62)11.8K playsHorde Survival Games

Atari Missile Command is a classic 1980 arcade game that defined the horde survival genre. In this browser-based HTML5 version, you control three anti-missile batteries to defend your six cities from a relentless aerial assault.

Using your mouse to aim and fire, your objective is to survive as long as possible against increasingly intense waves of enemy fire.

How Does the Scoring System Work?

In Atari Missile Command, your score is based on both your offensive and defensive performance. You earn points for every enemy projectile you successfully destroy. The point values vary depending on the type of enemy-ballistic missiles, smart bombs, and bombers are all worth different amounts.

At the end of each wave, you receive a significant bonus. You'll get 100 points for each of your six cities that remain standing. You also receive 5 points for every unused anti-missile shot left in your batteries, rewarding efficient and precise play.

What Are the Different Enemy Types?

The primary threat comes from ballistic missiles, which fall from the sky in straight lines at varying speeds. You'll also face smart bombs, which are trickier enemies that can change direction to evade your interceptor shots.

Be on the lookout for bomber planes that fly horizontally across the screen, dropping multiple missiles as they pass.

Later waves introduce MIRVs (Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles). These look like a single missile at first but will split into multiple warheads, creating a shower of projectiles that can quickly overwhelm your defenses if you're not prepared.

Surviving the Later Waves

As you progress in Atari Missile Command, the game's difficulty ramps up considerably. The speed and number of incoming missiles increase with each wave, demanding faster reflexes and better strategy.

It becomes crucial to prioritize which threats to engage first-always target the ones that are a direct danger to your cities.

A key to survival is conserving your limited ammunition. Don't waste shots on missiles that are going to miss your cities anyway. Instead, try to use the blast radius of a single one of your explosions to take out multiple enemy projectiles clustered together.