Phoenix is a shoot ’em up arcade game developed by Amstar Electronics (which was located in Phoenix, Arizona) in 1980,released by Centuri in the United States and by Taito in Japan.Bootleg versions of Phoenix were released by TPN and others. Atari also ported the game to the Atari 2600 console in 1982.
Phoenix Remakes
Music
There are two pieces of music featured in the game:
- Romance de Amor also known as Spanish Romance by an unknown composer.
- Für Elise by Beethoven.
Clones
- Griffon was released by Videotron in 1980.
- Falcon was released by BGV. in 1980.
- Vautour was released by Jeutel in 1980 in France.
- Condor was released by Sidam in 1981.
- Pheenix was released by Megadodo for the ZX Spectrum in 1983.
- Eagle Empire was released by Alligata Software for the BBC Micro in 1983.
- Various games titled Phoenix are available for many graphing calculators.
Bootlegs
- Phoenix was released by T.P.N in 1980.
- Phoenix was released by IRECSA, G.G.I Corp in 1980.
Sequels
The official sequel to Phoenix was called Pleiads (onscreen) or Pleiades (on the Centuri manufactured marquee) and was developed by Tehkan in 1981, and licensed to Centuri for US distribution. Pleiades featured more enemies attacking at once, balanced by the fact that the player could now have two shots on the screen at one time instead of one.
The Flagship level in the Midway game Gorf has been compared to the boss stage in Phoenix.
Hardware
Most Phoenix games will be in a standard Centuri woodgrain cabinet, but several other cabinets exist, due to this game being sold by multiple companies at the same time. These use sticker sideart (which covers the upper half of the machine), and glass marquees. The control panel is made up entirely of buttons, no joysticks are present in the arcade version (some cocktail versions do have joysticks). The monitor in this machine is mounted vertically, and the monitor bezel is relatively unadorned. Phoenix uses a unique wiring harness, which isn’t known to be compatible with any other games.
Circuitry in the Centuri version:
- CPU: 8085 at 5.5 MHz.
- RAM: 4 kB (8 2114 1k x 4 chips.)
- ROM: 16 kB (8 2716 2k x 8 chips.)
- Audio: Matsushita MN6221AA chip, along with discrete circuitry.
- Video: discrete circuitry, utilizing 4 more 2716 2k x 8 EPROMs, as well as 2 256 x 4 bipolar PROMs.
>The Remakes :
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