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Uniwars

UniWar S title screen shot.

Background[]

UniWar S was a bit of a unique bottom of the screen shooter when it hit the arcades in 1980 due to being one of the earlier games to have several different stages/enemies to deal with. It was created and distributed by Irem.

Gameplay[]

Players controlled a Space Ship that fired at different overhead targets. Colliding with any of the enemies, their fire or Spears would cause the player to lose a Ship and the game would end when they had no more Ships left in reserve.

With the first stage, players are engaged in space combat, facing a horde of Super Mosquitos that appeared in formation overhead. Just like with Galaxian, one or more Mosquitos would leave the formation and dive downwards towards the player’s Ship while dropping bombs. If the player did not shoot, nor allow a Mosquito to ram their Ship, then the Mosquito would reappear at the top of the screen, rejoining the formation.

If the player was able to clear out all Mosquitos, their ship would "WARP" and start into the ground combat rounds from there, first facing several Hovering Attackers that materialized in the center of the screen and bobbed from side to side. If the player did not shoot one after several seconds, it would dip closer to the player’s Ship, quickly spin around and then dive to a side while firing. If the player was unable to shoot it at that stage, then the Attacker would re-materialize back at the center of the screen again.

Clearing all Attackers would advance the player to face a group of Demon Flies, which slowly floated around, although if several seconds went by without the player destroying one, it could drop down a Spy Alien; shooting a Fly would also cause a Spy to drop down. If the player was unable to shoot a Spy, it would appear below their Ship and start deploying an electronic Spear, which, if it made contact with the player’s Ship, it would be destroyed.

Finally, if the player was able to pass the set of Flies, they would face Rolling Fires, which could only be destroyed with a shot in between segments that made up a Fire. Behavior in regards to dropping Spies was the same as on the previous wave. If the player was able to get past this area, they would start over on the next "pattern" of Super Mosquitos, but at an advanced degree of difficulty.

Also, during the last two rounds, a lone Killing King appeared during each wave, which, if the player was able to destroy it, would remove all onscreen Spies.

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