Radar Lock is an air combat shoot ’em up written by Doug Neubauer and published by Atari Corporation in 1989. The game is basically an After Burner derivative that uses a modified version of the engine used in Neubauer‘s previous Atari 2600 game, Solaris.

The aim of the game is to fly a ‘Delta Wing‘ jet fighter and to destroy an enemy air fleet over five separate missions. The jet has three different weapons: a rapid-fire, nose-mounted machine gun; guided missiles, and proximity missiles. To switch between these weapons you have to use the second joystick (the right controller), while using the left controller to fly the plane, which is a bit unorthodox but works well enough (and gets around the Atari 2600‘s limited controls).

After a certain number of enemy aircraft have been destroyed you must then re-fuel in mid-air to complete a mission. The fuel gauge (shown in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen) basically acts as a timer, and it is imperative that you re-fuel before it runs out.

As you might expect from the title of the game, there’s also a missile lock radar on the instrument panel in the middle of the screen, and in the bottom right-hand corner is a long range radar.

The number of lives remaining is shown by the pink triangles in the bottom left; the number of machine gun rounds remaining is shown in the bottom right, and the weapon you have selected is shown underneath the score at the top of the screen.

As you progress through the missions the type of enemy aircraft you encounter changes and it becomes more difficult to shoot them down. When you encounter larger enemy bombers you have to use your missiles to destroy them, although you only have limited number. Enemy aircraft also start shooting missiles at you more often.

Radar Lock can be played by one or two players simultaneously. In the two-player game player one flies the plane and player two acts as the “Weapons Officer“, and selects weapons and fires them. Which seems a bit ridiculous on the face of it, but at least it’s an extra play option.

Overall, Radar Lock is technically impressive, playable, and reasonably compelling for an Atari 2600 game. It came very late in the life cycle of the 2600 and was generally overlooked by gamers who had mostly moved on to 16-bit gaming at the time of its release. It’s still a fun game to play, though. At least for a short while. Like all Atari 2600 games it does have limited gameplay and longevity.

More: Radar Lock on Wikipedia