Console: Sega Master System
Game: Bomber Raid
Genre: Vertical Shooter
(Sega / Activision, 1988)
Collect power-ups, speed boosts, and back-up formations as you blaze through 5 stages of classic shooting action!
While clearly influenced by other similarly themed shooters of the era (namely the 1942 series from Capcom), Bomber Raid manages to deliver its own terrific take on 80's infused shooter action. Colorful graphics, great chip-tunes, and short cinema-style screens that greet the player in both the beginning of the game and in between stages really add an extra level of quality.
Bomber Raid starts you off with 3 lives (and 3 cluster bombs for each life). Your plane will feel slow, and a bit difficult to maneuver at first, but as soon as you are able to obtain both speed boosts, and power-ups, the gameplay really comes to life to provide a surprisingly intense and enjoyable shooter.
Do you have what it takes to make it through 5 stages of 8-Bit bullet-dodging action?
At the time of this writing, physical copies of Bomber Raid are currently going for anywhere between $30-50 on eBay (with and without instruction booklet).
*Bonus Stage 1: While the cover of the North American and UK releases of Bomber Raid show a Blackbird jet, it is nowhere to be found in the actual game (nor would it fit the time period)!
*Bonus Stage 2: Activision distributed a handful of SMS games in North America back in the 1980’s (Bomber Raid, Cyborg Hunter, Galaxy Force, Rampage) and while these games retained the classic Sega grid box design, Activision’s SMS games opted for unique box colors that really stand out from the general white box aesthetic found throughout the SMS library.
(We will be highlighting more Activision SMS games and boxes in future posts.)