Roy Shildt, Missile Commander with
Paul Drury, Retro Gamer Reporter
Retro Magazine Writer, United Kingdom
Paul Drury
with Roy Shildt, was the Missile Command Champion
Paul Dean - Spy Hunter Champion
looks at Roy Shildt's Amazing Score
1 up High Score
Stories behind the scenes
Retro Gamer Magazine - Issue #16
(Roy Shildt - Missile Command Interview)
July 1, 1985
The story behind the score
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Retro Magazine Retro Gamer
Issue 16
MAY ISSUE 2005
July 16, 2005
Retro Gamer Issue #16
Delivering high kicks to your head! Link
Posted 04 July 2005 10:41 AM
Martyn Carroll
Live Publishing Staff Member
Retro Gamer is the UK's first regular retro magazine. Published monthly, each
issue delves into the glorious, ever-growing retro scene and covers all the
classic games, computers and consoles from your misspent youth.
Coin-Op Guinness Book High Score Players
By Paul Drury
1UP HIGH SCORE
The stories behind the scores
1UP High Score
The Stories Behind The Scores
With a score of 1,695,256 on the ultra-difficult tournament setting, Roy Shildt has
held the Missile Command world record for 20 years until Tony Temple from England
beat him. Paul Drury spoke to the man himself about this incredible, and controversial,
achievement.
With a nod to Sigmund Freud, Roy Shildt explains: "Missile Command has a subconscious
attraction due to its phallic association. It's a unique 'shoot and explode' type of
game where you can really get your rockets off. It takes balls to play it, pure and
simple."
At Retro Gamer we know that to become a world champion on any arcade game requires
years, sometimes decades, of dedicated practice, and for a player to devote so much
of their life to a game means it must occupy a game means it must occupy a special
place in their heart. But we weren't expecting the appeal to be in the loins. Roy
confesses, though, that Missile Command became an obsession.
Missile Command, Stand-up coin-operated Cabinet
"I dedicated my life to the game. It was in the lobby of the student dorm at the
University of California, Los Angeles, where I was studying, and I was playing
it three of four hours a day for five years. I graduated college a year and a half
later than I should have just so I could carry on playing it."
Missile Command Control Panel with Track Ball
Keeping score
Roy's grueling regime and incredible trackball skills led to his fist world record
in 1982, when after 38 hours and 24 minutes of solid play, he clocked up 60 million
points. He is fairly dismissive of this feat, however, as it was achieved with the
machine on the standard factory setting, which awards bonus cities.
"Marathon game records are irrelevant. They're pretty easy to get if the machine
is giving you a free city every 10,000 points. Then at around 800,000 there's a
bug in the game that gives you a whole stack of extra cities, making those big
scores basically worthless."
Twin Galaxies, Scorekeeper
In response to this, Twin Galaxies, the official guardian of world record videogame
scores, declared a new "tournament" setting for Missile Command in 1983, which didn't
award any bonus cities, just the six you begin with. Undeterred, Roy continued to
hone his skills. He developed new strategies in response to this far harder setting,
including protecting just the one city to the left of the central base against the
relentless barrage of enemy fire. A tournament in 1984 saw him reach 1.4 million, an
accomplishment which led to him becoming the first inductee to the Videogame Hall of
Fame. So traveling up to Johnny Zee's Family Fun Centre in Victoria, British Columbia,
Canada, for the Videogame Masters Tournament in the summer of 1985, Roy felt
understandably confident.
"Yeah, I knew I could improve my score, but when I got there, there was no Missile
Command machine! Once the owner saw I'd arrived, he went and got one, but it didn't
come in till the second day of the tournament. Then there was a problem with the
trackball. The mechanic was great, but didn't fix it until the day after, so I'd
missed out on three days of play that the other contestants had had. But it was OK,
as Walter Day [Twin Galaxies scoreboard] said I could have extra time. I didn't go
round discussing that with the other players - most of them were teenagers - so when
I did get 1.6 million on 3rd July, a lot of people thought it wasn't fair because
I'd had extra time, but then they didn't know the circumstances."
Howard Stern
Position of power
Not content with appearing on the Howard Stern show in 2000, Roy now harbors
presidential ambitions and is seeking the Democratic Nomination for 2008. Indeed,
as the role of the US President includes being Commander-in-Chief - the man in
charge of the world's largest nuclear arsenal - having superhuman Missile Command
skills should surely be an essential attribute for any serious candidate?
In case his dexterous fingers should ever be called upon to save the Free World,
Roy has recently bought a Missile Command cabinet and is back in practice. His
scores are already exceeding 1 million, though he does acknowledge his record is
breakable.
"My score can definitely be beaten, but it's going to take a lot of work. You
need someone with talent and intelligence. I have an IQ of 138, which is half a
per cent less than a genius. I have a mathematical brain and good pool skills.
I'm a talented guy."
Well, even if that someone can be found it's unlikely they will be as colorful,
entertaining and outspoken as Roy. For more on this remarkable man
Roy Shildt and the Big Red Button
Roy Shildt has some competition… Tony Temple, TT contender from England!
Tony Temple - Missile Command
United Kingdom UK 2005
Link
Tony Temple, Missile Command Contender, England
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a new contender. Retro Gamer reader Tony 'TT' Temple
from Derbyshire, England, has come a long way since first playing Missile Command
in Rita's Café in Bristol in 1981. Having survived years of passive smoking and
greasy breakfasts, he spent nine hours in 1984 racking up a marathon score of
14 million. Last September, after two decades apart, he acquired his own machine,
beautifully restored by Archer MacLean to mint condition, and tries to play a
few hours every day.
"No two games are the same," says Tony. "That's what keeps me coming back for more.
I've been playing on tournament setting for three months now. Tournament is about
as hard as it gets on any machine - It's just relentless. I'm up to 1,315,000 points,
verified on videotape, which is pretty close. Playing the machine, I realize just
how phenomenal Roy's record is - the game is so unforgiving after 500,000 points.
But just give me a few more weeks…"
Tony "TT" Temple:
UPDATE: Tony 'TT' Temple High Score Results at the CGEUK Event: August 9, 2005: Link
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher (CGEUK) Jun 10 2005, 11:36 PM Post #1 link
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Tony is coming VERY close to taking the World Record at Missile Command.
Tony will try to beat this at CGEUK... Link
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Press release supplied by Games Press 12:15 06/05/2005 Link
Way of the Rodent
Tony Temple and Missile Command, United Kingdom
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 6th 2005
Press release supplied by Games Press 12:15 06/05/2005
New too is the latest installment of Tony Temple's historic mission to bring the
Missile Command record to England where he and Gary (Galaxians) Whelan plan to
bare their British arses to the former record-holding Americans. As is traditional.
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Missile Command, and Steven Spielberg
Missile Command
Manufacturer: Atari
Year: 1980
Class: Wide Release
Genre: Shooter
Type: Videogame
Monitor:
Orientation: Horizontal
Type: Raster: Standard Resolution
CRT: Color
Conversion Class: unique
Number of Simultaneous Players: 1
Maximum number of Players: 2
Gameplay: Alternating
Control Panel Layout: Single Player
Controls:
Buttons: 3
Trackball: Optical
Sound: Amplified Mono (one channel)
Description
Using three atomic missile launching bases you defend your cities against incoming
missiles. Enemy missiles may seperate into several missiles so shoot them down early
because you only have a limited number of missiles.
Cabinet Information
The game was released as a table model, a standard up-right cabinet, a cabaret-style
mini cabinet and even a giant sit-down cockpit cabinet.
Conversion
A conversion kit by GCC Technologies called Super Missile Attack was made to convert
this game.
Miscellaneous
SPINOFF: Super Missile Attack
BOOTLEG: Missile Defend
MOVIE APPEARANCES: "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991), "Fast Times At Ridgemont High"
(ending credits)
You can play a Shockwave version of this game online here:
ftp://internet.hasbrointeractive.com/anonftp/shockwave/missilecommand.html
Technical
The game uses a 6502 microprocessor and one Atari Pokey sound chip.
Trivia
This game was also licensed to Sega for release in certain European countries.
This game was included in the Arcade's Greatest Hits Collection, which also includes
Super Breakout, Centipede, Tempest, Asteroids, and Battlezone.
Roy Shildt Competing at California Extreme on August 7, 2005
August 7, 2005 - California Extreme Results: Link
Missile Command, The End
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