Suicide Mission

Name:	Suicide Mission
Company:	Starpath
Model #:	AR4012
Programmers:	Steve Hales and Stephen Landrum
Year:	1982
Released?	Yes
Notes:	Originally called Meteoroid

Ever seen the movie Fantastic Voyage?  Well then you're familiar with the plot of Suicide Mission.  You are a scientist who has been shrunk down and put in a human patient.  You mission to to wipe out the infection that is threatening the patient's heart.  Using your penicillin torpedoes you must destroy all the nasty viruses before they overrun your ship.

Does Suicide Mission look a little familiar?  Maybe if you replaced the little viruses with large rotating rocks?  Yes that's right, Suicide Mission originally started out as an Asteroids clone.  A vector Asteroids clone!  Using the Venetian Blinds technique developed by Bob Whitehead Starpath was all set to release what Atari players had always wanted, an arcade accurate (or nearly so) version of Asteroids.  Unfortunately Atari caught wind of this and threatened to sue Starpath if they released Meteoroid (the prototype name for Suicide Mission) as is, so a few graphical tweaks later Suicide Mission was born.

It's a shame that Starpath wasn't able to release Meteoroid in its original form, because it was as close as gamers were ever going to get to a home version of vector Asteroids.  Still, Suicide Mission is pretty close to Meteoroid with a few minor graphical and gameplay changes.  It's sort of amazing that Atari let Suicide Mission be released since you can still see the strong Asteroids influence.  Perhaps Atari felt that they shouldn't press their luck with a second lawsuit?

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