Museum of the Game ®

International Arcade Museum® — Killer List of Videogames®

Starblade

Description

A space shooter. There are two seperate missions; the first is to destroy the planet Red Eye and the second is to destroy the enemy fleet and their leader.

Starblade was produced by Namco in 1991.

Namco released 310 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1977. Namco was based in Japan.

Other machines made by Namco during the time period Starblade was produced include: Mach Storm, Angler King, World Stadium '90, Steel Gunner, Souko Ban Deluxe, Cosmo Gang The Video, Final Lap 2, Golly! Ghost!, Solvalou, and Steel Gunner 2

Specs

Name	Starblade
Developer	Namco (Japan)
Year	1991
Type	Videogame
KLOV/MOG #	9779
Class	Wide Release
Genre	Shooter
Monitor	Orientation: Horizontal Type: Raster: Standard Resolution Color: Color 25-inch with a concave mirror.
Conversion Class	unique
# Simultaneous Players	1
# Maximum Players	1
Game Play	Single
Control Panel Layout	Single Player
Controls	Gun: Positional with trigger
Sound	Special Sound System Four-speaker stereo
Cabinet Styles	Environmental/Cockpit

Game Introduction

A 3-D version of a Star Wars-type game.

Starblade KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 4.07 (6 votes)

Fun Factor: 4.56

Overall Like	4.60
Fun (Social)	3.75
Fun (Solo)	4.60
Collector Desire	5.00

Technical Rating: 4.17

Gameplay	4.80
Graphics	4.33
Originality	4.80
Sound/Music	4.60

Personal Impressions and Technical Impressions each account for half of the total score. Within the Personal Impressions category, Like carries a little more weight than the other factors.

Images

Trivia

Memory of the game by Michael Cooper Hart, VP of Manufacturing and Product Development for Namco America when Starblade was developed:

"The US version Industrial Design was done by Regan Chang Design with my direction. By accident, my voice became the voice-over for the tower. I was in the Namco Yokohama labs to hear the voice recording for Starblade. Namco had hired a Canadian actor to do the voice over. I was very concerned about this for 2 reasons - First, I was concerned about the tower and pilot communication lingo, I had grown up in the Air Force and knew how the pilots and the tower actually talk. Second, the Canadian accent might not work. The Namco developers had me re-write the script. We waited for over an hour for the actor to arrive when we got a call that the actor was stuck in Tokyo traffic for about 4 hours. I had to go on to other meetings so the developers had me read and record the script for timing purposes. Several days later I saw the developers in another Namco Lab and they told me that my voice was being used for the tower voice. They had me listen to the recording and I told them that I sounded like a wimp, not a Samurai like a Tower Controllers voice should sound! They said they could not help it if I was a Wimp and used the voice anyway. True Story."

Cabinet Information

A sit-down cockpit game where the seat vibrates when you are hit by an enemy missle. The game weighs 896 pounds when shipped.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Starblade Census

There are 15,264 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 9,669 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 166,973 machines (7,000 unique titles).

Common - There are 21 known instances of this machine owned by Starblade collectors who are active members. Of these, 18 of them are original dedicated machines. 3 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

For Sale - There is one active VAPS member with a Starblade machine for sale.

Wanted - There are 6 active VAPS members currently looking for Starblade.

This game ranks a 5 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 7 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

Rarity and Popularity independently are not necessarily indications of value. [More Information]

Flyers

'91 Namco Amusement Machines Catalogue

1991 / 6 Pages

Manuals

eBay Listings

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