Arcade Rip Off goes down in history as being the first co-operative two-player game. Made in 1979 Rip Off is another masterpiece from Tim Skelly. Rip Off has you the player piloting a pirate destroyer craft with the intent of killing the scavenging pirates who try and steal the 6 or so fuel canisters situated in the middle of the playing field. You need to be deadly accurate as the pirates do their utmost to make sure that the fuel will be added to their deadly arsenal which in turn can be used to maim their enemy. Once one of the pirates grabs a fuel canister it attaches it to itself and proceeds to escape off-screen trying avoid you the foreboding pirate destroyer.
The control panel is set up as the standard Asteroids layout minus the hyperspace button. (Ozedmir 2000) The amazing thing about Rip Off is the artificial intelligence of the pirates and for it’s time it is way ahead of any other AI on any game of the era. (Skelly 1999) By the 1980’s games like Pacman were developing efficient AI but Rip Off led the way for all future developments thanks to Skelly’s genius.
Rip Off has really good sound effects and if you grab a mate serious carnage can be sought on-screen with a minimal amount of slow-down. Again Vectrex games seem to come alive when simultaneous two-player is combined with fast action packed gameplay and good graphics and effects. Very smooth.On ebay for around $20.U.S.
Score 7/10
Review written by Daniel Foot
Instruction can be found at:
http://www.digitpress.com/library/manuals/vectrex/rip_off.txt
