Gorf

Released 1982
Atari 2600

Gorf is the first game I remember playing that had a legitimate boss fight. That's a big step in my personal gaming history, and I've always looked back fondly on this game as a result. Yes, I am a huge nerd. I am aware.

The game itself is yet another Space Invaders knock off, but the twist is of course the boss fight I mentioned. The first wave or level of the game has your ship/cannon/totem/sling-shot/tripod/manowar-thing going up against a fleet of space invaders (the manual calls them "Gorfs and Droids") that move side to side just like in the classic game. You shoot them, and as they get closer to the ground, they get faster. Unfortunately, you can only fire 1 bullet at a time, and if you try to fire a second shot before your first connects, the first bullet vanishes. I'm not sure what insane technology allows this to be possible in a war against alien invaders, but it certainly seems counterproductive. I'm guessing it was some sort of no-bid government contract that lead to it's development.

Anyway, the second wave then begins and features a squadron of 5 fast moving alien ships. The left and right wing-men continually dive bomb the player, while the lead ship fires a massive (and loud) LAZOR BEAM at the player. It takes a few risky moves to clear the wave, but once you've taken out all 5 ships, you move onto the strangest of the 4 waves. At wave 3, there is a circle of dots that never moves, and a strange tie-fighter looking ship spirals outward from the circle. The player has to shoot several of these in succession before they move too far from the circle. That wave has always seemed odd to me.
The final wave is against a single relatively large ship that flies back and forth dropping pixel-bombs. The ship is very loud, and has a single weak point, which is about 2 pixels wide, and requires only 1 hit to ensure total destruction.

Once you've finished the 4th wave, the entire thing just starts back over again and repeats until you get sick of it and shut the damn thing off. It's not terribly challenging, but the uniqueness of each wave gives the player a sense of progression that many games of the day didn't offer.

It's a shame the game had such an awful name.
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