1
As commander of the desert crawler, Phoenix, your mission is bizarre yet vital. Flocks of fierce, mutating birds protect a giant spacecraft that is slowly draining your planet's resources. Shoot through the birds to reach the spaceship and stop the parasite within.
Game Information
Post your scores right here in this thread, and I will add them to the list. Remember to play the game with the recommended game mode and difficulty settings as shown above so that your scores will be consistent with everyone elses. The deadline for posting scores is Wednesday September 1st at 1:00 AM (Central Time, UTC-6). |
Challenges
|
Current High Scores
Best Tips
TwinGalaxies Top 3
| Current Standings |
Scoring Points in Phoenix
|
Hints and Tips
The Manual
As always, you really should read the manual. In case you don't have the manual, AtariAge has a typed copy and a scanned copy available online. Here are the hints it provides:
- Overcome the temptation to fire away the first time the small birds appear. Instead, take a few moments to study their patterns. Observe what happens when you are positioned directly beneath the birds, and when you are not. Study the attack patterns of the lower birds. Learn how to move your laser cannon between the bombs without getting blown apart.
- In all phases of the game except for the second wave of small birds, you must press the red fire button each time you want to squeeze off a shot. However, in the second wave of small birds, you'll get continuous firing if you hold the button down.
- Don't waste lives trying to accumulate a lot of points in the early waves. Play it safe. Save your stamina for the large birds and for the spaceship, where the real big points are scored.
- For the first two times you encounter the alien spaceship, you can chip away the blue layer of the spaceship without getting bombed if you fire close to the edges furthest from the cockpit. Starting with the third encounter with the spaceship, however, bombs will fall from those edges and the alien's shots will be faster-paced and more accurate - just to make things more challenging for advanced players! At all times, you need two shots at the same point to create a hole in the blue layer.
- Use your force field sparingly and as a strategic device in emergency situations. If a bird brushes up against your force field, it will be disintegrated; but if a bird crashes into your unprotected laser cannon, you're both "dead ducks." The moral: Keep a watchful eye for low flying birds!
We played this game once before in the High Score Club, you might want to check out that thread for more hints.
Scrabbler15
On the first two wave levels, try to get all the baddies on one side of the screen. Shoot them as they move across the screen toward your ship. This works especially well on the second wave where you have auto-fire by holding the button down. Also, this method helps in always having space to move away from the bombs.
On the first bird wave, move to the left when the level starts. Then get the bird on the third level first. Then the second level, then the first. These three lowest birds can be cleared before the birds can finish their first left to right pass. Always aim for the middle of the bird, but it's even more important here to clear the lower birds quickly.
I think Deteachers tip from last time is probably the most important for scoring well (I do it the same way). After 4 or 5 shots at the mother ship, pull back on the stick to activate the shield. Keep shooting while the shield is on. Doing this makes it possible to get a hole all the way to the blue barrier before moving to the edge of the mother ship to shoot holes in the barrier. When ready to go for the kill of the mother ship, move back to the hole in the middle and activate the shield immediately. Then shoot while protected by the shield.
I only use the shield on screens 3 and 4 in crisis situations (e.g. In the corner, three birds overhead, lots of bombs falling). Every time the shield is pulled on, there's a chance that the shield will go away at the same time a bomb is about to crash into the ship. Also, I think these screens are counter-intuitive, in that they require more patience than just shooting a lot. After I clear the bottom three birds, I really pick my shots more.
I just clear screens 1 and 2 as quickly and as carefully as I can. If I lose a ship on one of the first two screens, I don't like myself much after that. Survival is everything.
Miss 2600
I feel it is a real wasted life to lose one on the first two screens. I knock them out as quickly as I can whether they are diving or not. In the V formation, sometimes I can knock out half of them right off the bat. I can see the strategy of waiting for them to dive to get more points, but that would also increase the risk of losing a life that is needed more on the more difficult screens.
Does anyone else find that the big-winged birds are easier to kill when they have both their wings? You have to hit them in the same spot regardless but for some reason I have a much harder time when their wings are clipped.
I find I'm using the shield a lot more often then when I started. While the shield is on, I hold the joystick to one side so my ship will move immediately after the shield turns off and, hopefully, out of the way of bullets. It's not full-proof but it has worked for me. I also find myself using the shield to take out the final bird, although sometimes they fly in the opposite direction.
zylon
For what it's worth, I just blast through the first 2 screens as quick as possible. The difference in points isn't worth that much to me. The 3rd screen I start with first bird on right, then the 3 lower left ones. The 4th screen I fire just as soon as they appear and score a free kill in the center. Next I go left killing the lowest one as it passes over and kill the top one when it's by itself at upper left. Then, I head right taking out the other 2 low ones. On the mother ship, I just stay near the center firing away till I've got a through lane. Then use the shield and take it out.
--Zero
I don't have this cart, so Stella was used. After a few rounds of practice, my score is 58,050.
