Mine Storm

Mine Storm
Publisher(s)	General Consumer Electronics
Programmer(s)	John Hall
Platform(s)	Vectrex
Release	1982
Mode(s)	single-player video game

Mine Storm (also written as MineStorm) is a game similar to Atari's 1979 Asteroids arcade game, published in 1982 by General Consumer Electronics as the built-in game for the Vectrex system. It was implemented by John Hall.

Developed by General Consumer Electronics, Vectrex's manufacturer, it was built into the game system. The gameplay is very similar to that of Atari's Asteroids. The game begins with a large enemy ship dropping mines onto the field as an ominous jingle plays, and moves from the top to the bottom of the screen, where it disappears. The player's ship starts in the middle of the field with 5 lives. Numerous mines then start popping up. The player must destroy all of the mines in order to progress to the next minefield. All of the mines can be destroyed with one shot, or hit with the player's ship, costing the player a life. There are 4 types of mines.

The original game that came packaged with the Vectrex system included a bug causing the game to crash on the thirteenth level. If a player called GCE (Milton Bradley in the UK) and reported this bug, they would receive "MineStorm/II", free of charge. Only a few people did this, making the game extremely rare among collectors.

MineStorm was reviewed in 1982 by Video magazine in its "Arcade Alley" column, where it was described as "a fast-moving contest, more than slightly similar to Asteroids".David H. Ahl of Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games praised the controls' "excellent" responsiveness, and the "simply magnificent" graphics and sound. He recommended the game to Asteroids fans who were disappointed by other home versions.

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