Rescue on Fractalus [Lucasfilm Games] 1985 - Game Over (Alien)

[disgaeahavok]

I have never heard of this util a couple of days ago. This should've been a meme!

[022starlet]

I was addicted to this game as a kid but so scared of the alien I used to make my sister tell me if it was a pilot or alien while I hid behind my hands :)

[Mequa32]

I believe there is evidence that this scene with the alien popping up was directed by George Lucas himself.

[digitalicful]

aaaaaahhh what horrible. i know I GOTA BELIEVE. jeje no,lets chill playing left 4 dead

[od090]

an alien chav xD

[JonPanganiban]

He must have garnered extreme hatred against you to storm your ship bare-handed. He meant business. Business of the killing variety.

[LordBicen]

I had this for my Atari 5200. My first experience with a Jaggi Alien was i got sick of hearing that annoying knock on the airlock every time i picked up the pilots. When the pilots got in range, i'd open the airlock. One got in my airlock and started drainin my energy. My blood went cold when the message in black appeared on the display ALIEN IN AIRLOCK!!! I was like What the HELL!? The MS was in orbit so immediately hit the boosters and launched home. Upon orbit, poor bastard got sucked out.

[LordBicen]

@LordBicen but it was creepy my first time cause i had never seen a Jaggi before, and now, one was on my ship. it was alittle more suspenseful when you CANT see whats trying to kill you. When that happened i started makin the pilots knock before i would let them in and when that little bastard jumped up and started beating on my window the next mission in my extra pilots run after quota, i was totally shocked and caught completely off guard. I wasnt so lucky that time.

[yostoyou]

wow! that's scary.

[superspit]

OMG....memories of my Atari 1200XL...wonderful unit, wonderful game!

[Archbiddy]

When I was a kid, I guess about 8 years old, I used to play this game downstairs in my basement. The first time I saw an alien, it was early morning and I was the only person awake in my house. The alien jumped up and made that terrible WHOOEEEE noise. I was terrified beyond comprehension. I sprinted to my parents crying in fear. I had nightmares for a while and I never felt secure being in the basement by myself. Also I was too scared to play the later levels ever again.

[TheGreatAtario]

@Archbiddy

In my case, I was in my mid-teens. I didn't run crying to my parents, but I did sit there for about five minutes trying to come down from my heart attack.

[Neroroks]

oh the memories, this was one of the best games i played as a kid, me and my bro loved it.

great work, im off to find an atari emu

[RetroVGamer]

Then you rescue a few more. Oh look here comes another human AHHH!!!! WTF!!! An alien pops up in front of the screen and smashes your ships window and you die.

This comes as a total shock. No where does it say in the manual this will happen. It just comes out of no where. The first time it happened. I nearly fell off my chair and screamed like a little girl.

[Jayfive276]

Its kind of implied in the instructions, theres some sort of ships log from a pilot that gets got by the aliens but yes, you dont know its coming. Scared me that much as a kid I couldnt play it again for ages.

[RetroVGamer]

Instructions? Who reads the instructions? I never did, lol.

[SarahKreuz31]

hahaha,same too me. XD

[RetroVGamer]

I picked it up at K-mart for $9.99. This was the first game to genuinely scare me. On the surface it seems simple enough. Your spaceship launches. You go through a planets atmosphere and shoot alien turrets over mountains.

Occasionally a human needs rescuing. You land your ship and you watch as the human comes running towards your ship and comes onboard. Yay! You rescued him.

[RetroVGamer]

Rescue on Fractalus for the Atari 5200 and Commodore 64. Created by Lucasfilm games. Yeah prelucasarts.

It was released between 1983 and 85. Yeah after the great Video Game crash and before Nintendo rose from the ashes like a Phoenix. Essentially the dark ages for console gaming.

[dvamateur]

Yeah, it was scary, I remember. It's strange though, becasue I remember I could've recognized the alien from far away by a green head. This one on this video has a white head, and still it's a monster. That's surprising!

[DavidBFox]

Yes, green head at first, but on later levels, the Jaggies got smarter and somehow made their heads look white. Maybe they 'borrowed' the head of the dead pilot who's uniform they're wearing and mounted it in front of their own head?

[sukashi]

That's actually pretty scary.

[PanSathyros]

One of biggest fears in my life, finally overcomed ;>. Thanks pal, great job!

[PhoenixOtaku]

same here, 25 years and I finally managed to conquer it - turns out it was one of the best games on the Atari! played it for hours on end after that.

[pjayala01]

Thought I was the only one who feared it. I was only 3 when this game was released, so I used to see my dad to play it, as a child back then I believed that the windshield was actually the TV screen breaking and that the alien would pop out of the TV and kill everyone! such a poor child trauma :(

[PanSathyros]

About dad and TV screen - I had exactly the same story ;>

[syipisa]

actually it was not my daddy, but my brother and i was about 6... always staring at the windows at night...thinking any minute there could be that scary monster hitting the glass :-((

[DavidBFox]

Ah, so sorry! We didn't intend to traumatize little kids with this!!

[TJae1]

Jaggi suxs; jagga :) Did any1 discover the secret for spotting the jagga.

[olynxmano]

One of the best gaming moments ever: The first encounter with the Jaggi

[krbosak]

YES this is one of the most scaring alien monster of all games, maybe thanks to its eyes AND the 'cinematic' sound.

[xmelo]

I've played this game in childhood and almost had heartattack and get shocked for few minutes when this alien attacked me, after then I was scared to played it again. It was the first scary memorable moment

[RodFerrada]

When i was a little kid i got scared the shit out by that alien. It was really something...i stopped playing the game. I nver forgot about it, and to this day i was amazed at how much it was my impression as a child.

Now 20 years later i see this by chance, i can't believe, this is just the second time i see the alien, and now..it looks so damn laughable.

[ElAurian]

my brother always played it when he was 18 and scared the me to death. i got nightmares because of it.

[Boardy1976]

that alien used to scare the shit out of me when I was a kid.

[newforestroadwarrior]

If you look at the alien's suit there are four sets of initials on it.

These are said to be the initials of the game's programmers.

[DavidBFox]

Yes, if you turn your head sideways. The Jaggi doesn't always jump up high enough for you to see them, though. (Loren Carpenter, David Fox, Charlie Kellner, Peter Langston)

[pokefanjonny]

i can't wait to get hold of more relics like this// i used to have an amiga 1200 with added ram_

[Sherwoodhoodbud]

I still have this great game, amongst many others. You could also let the alien on board, and you could hear him beating the hell out of the place. The only way to kill him was to take off and try to get into space, which is never easy with a 6ft alien on board :D

[JAF1970]

Not really. You simply turned on the ship's force field and it killed the alien instantly.

[DavidBFox]

Once he was inside the ship, turning your force field on had no effect (he was inside, after all). And yes, the only way would be if you could Boost back to the mother ship. But you could only do that if it had returned to orbit to pick you up (if you had rescued at least 1/2 of your allocated pilots for that level).

[crxtodd16]

@DavidBFox

I LOVED this game!!! David, i'm glad you posted on here-you guys were pure genius. I also played when i was little and it seriously scared the SH*T out of me every time that alien popped up!! Hah! Watching this vid made me get an emulator and play it for old time's sake. I still love it. I seriously wish someone would do a remake of it, make it even more awesome with sweet graphics, go deeper into the story, and make those d@mn aliens even scarier - if such a thing is even possible.

[DavidBFox]

@crxtodd16 Thanks!! Sorry about the scare... hope it wasn't too messy :-)

I'd love to see an updated RoF as well! Maybe someday it will happen.

[GamesEmotions]

great job my friend! :D