Gir Draxon, Supreme Overlord of the evil Arcturan Empire, is preparing to launch an attack on Earth. As Commander of Terran forces assigned to protect the planet, your mission is to reach the Arcturan star system and destroy Draxon before he can assemble his forces and capture Earth.
To help combat the powerful Arcturan Armada, Terran High Command has placed you at the controls of the Raven, Earth's most sophisticated fighting machine. From the command seat of the Raven, you must face Arcturan forces in seven different star systems. If you successfully destroy enough of the enemy forces in one star system, a Guardian will appear. If the Guardian is battled and defeated, a Warp Link will appear. Drive into the Warp Link to transport yourself into the next star system. Upon reaching the seventh system, Arcturus, you must locate and destroy Gir Draxon's flagship. Should you succeed, Earth will be saved. Failure will leave your home planet defenseless against Draxon's assault and guarantee Earth's destruction!
Main menu
The main menu offers five options.
BEGIN: Starts a new game
BRIEFING: Displays and provides data on the enemies, obstacles and other game objects. You can zoom in or out or rotate the displayed object.
PREFS: enable or disable mouse and joystick, music and sounds, and story panels, and set the game difficulty.
Easy: 2 continues, 3 uses of each power module
Standard: 1 continue, 1 use of each power module, +50% points (except guardians)
Hard: zero continues, no uses of power modules, +100% points (except guardians)
Note: inviso cloak starts with 3 uses in all difficulty modes.
SCORES: Display the list of high-scores
EXIT: exit the game
Controls and short-cuts
Arrow keys: Move forward, backward, left and right Space Bar/Joystick Button One: Fire Cannon Tab/Joystick Button Two: Select Power Model Enter/Joystick Both Buttons: Activate Selected Power Model Z: Toggle Zoom
Power Modules keys: E: EEL Shield T: MP Thruster I: Inviso Cloak S: Super Cannon J: Jump Thruster C: Cat's Eye B: RC Bomb
P: Pause Esc: Exit
F10: Preferences F2: Toggle Sound and Music Alt-S: Toggle Sound Alt-M: Toggle Music Alt-J: Toggle Joystick Support Alt-C: Calibrate Joystick Alt-D: Toggle Mouse Support Alt-Q: Quit to DOS
Game screen
Power modules and pickups
You can carry up to three of each of the power modules, indicated by the red dots by each module. The
inviso cloak starts with 3 uses in all modes, the others have 3 uses in easy, 1 in standard, and none in hard. Destroy 3 of certain enemies in a row cause a module pick to appear and drive across it to pick it up. Note that pickups can be destroyed by gunfire. You'll also earn points by collecting pickups: 100 points on easy, 150 on standard, and 200 on hard difficulty.
EEL Shield (E): (middle left) ram enemies to use their shields against them. Get a pickup by destroying 3 Prowlers in a row.
MP Thruster (T): (bottom right) Give you a forward burst of speed. Get a pickup by destroying 3 Sandsleds in a row.
Inviso Cloak (I) (top left) Make you invisible for about a minute. Enemies will know your last visible position and will detect your position when you fire. Recharge by docking at a Fuel Bay in missions 3 and 6. Note that you can't recharge while cloaked.
Super Cannon (S): (bottom left) Increase damage done by your cannon fire and eliminates reload time. Get a pickup by destroying 3 Assault tanks in a row in missions 4 and 5.
Jump Thruster (J): (top center) Gives you a brief vertical lift. Use in conjunction with the MP Thruster to jump over enemies. Get a pickup by destroying 3 Skimmers in a row.
Cat's Eye (C) (middle right) Detect Cloaked Enemies. Get a pickup by destroying 3 Stalkers in a row in missions 6 and 7.
RC Bomb (B) (top right) Drop a land mine behind you. Get a pickup by destroying 3 Seekers in a row.
