Game of the Day - Tac/Scan

 

Excuse me if the following sounds incoherent, but Tac/Scan is a little hard to explain.  You control a fleet of ships at the bottom middle of the screen with a spinner/dial.  They don't really move from their spot, they simply rotate left/right (clockwise & counter) in unison.  You fire at ships coming down the screen in a quasi-3D perspective - all ships firing together every time.  The spinner is used to fly left or right, but your ships don't really move, the background/enemies/environment does in response.  Kind of like a first-person shooter with a 3rd person view.

As your ships take hits, they disappear and your fleet becomes smaller, but you can add ships back in by hitting the 2nd button.  You start with a stock of extra ships that aren't part of your flying fleet of 7.  So, as you drop down in the number of ships, you have a backstock to add to the empty places in your armada by hitting a button.  You can do this at anytime: when you lose your first ship, or when you are down to one, or any number in between.  So you can play the game with any number in your armada, 1-7.  You can always add a ship with a button as long as you still have some in stock (ships remaining are indicated in the upper left corner).

There are some really unique things here...  First, if you lose the last ship in your armada, the game is over, EVEN if you have ships in stock - so don't let all your armada die before adding ships back in.  Second, you can only have seven missile in the air at any give time.  So if you have seven in your armada and fire, you CAN fire again, but the previous missiles will disappear.  So be patient when firing, let the missiles get to the enemy.  The fact that you can have seven missiles flying becomes an interesting tactic when you have less than seven ships in your armada.  For instance, if you only have 3 ships flying, you can fire twice (only 6 missiles) without any missiles disappearing - if you have only one ship flying, you can fire at something seven times without the farthest one yet disappearing.  It makes it sometimes advantageous to not add your stock ships to your armada immediately.  Third, you have the opportunity to capture bonus ships that come at you and add them to your armada.

What I've described is only the first stage.  The second stage changes the perspective to flatter and more 3D.  The 3rd stage is simply flying thru some 3D hoops and obstacles (it's stupid slows down the other fun of the game).  Then the stage type repeats.

You won't ever find another game like Tac/Scan.