RIVER RAID
1982
◼︎ It’s not immediately obvious where Carol Shaw took inspiration from when she designed
River Raid
just by looking at it, but once you know that she wanted to make a shooter with a continually scrolling screen thanks to playing
Scramble
the origins of her 2600 title’s mechanics become clearer. In other respects, the two games couldn’t be any more different.
Scramble
is a side-scrolling shoot-’em-up, whereas
River Raid
scrolls vertically.
Scramble
has mountains, cave systems and skyscrapers; by comparison,
River Raid
has an endless stretch of water. Aside from differentiating itself visually from
Scramble, River Raidgives you different weapons. InScrambleyou get a front-firing gun and bombs that fall downwards, but inRiver Raidyou just have forward-firing missiles. Depending on which mode you select, these either travel in a straight trajectory or are guided to their target.River Raidalso distinguishes itself from Konami’s coin-op with its approach to fuel. InScramble, you accumulate fuel by shooting it, but inRiver Raidyou fly over fuel to collect it, and only shoot at supplies you don’t need.