Beamrider - Information

Beamrider's plot described the formation of a beam matrix above the player's home planet. With Beamships readying to attack, the player had to infiltrate the matrix and defend their planet.

Beamrider was an arcade shoot 'em up that was played out on a tilted grid, with the player's ship at the bottom of the screen, and the enemy beamships flying down to attack (in forced perspective) from above. The player's gun had a fairly short range (about half-way up the screen), but the three torpedoes available for each sector could go all the way up to the top.

In total, there were 99 sectors to battle through, with the latter sectors being much harder to clear than the earlier ones. Before they could progress to the next sector, the player had to destroy the sector's sentinel ship.