Arcade Archives: Moon Patrol

Moon Patrol is a 1982 horizontally scrolling shooter video game developed and published by Irem for arcades. It was released by Williams Electronics in North America. The player controls a lunar rover which continually drives forward across a scrolling landscape while jumping over or shooting obstacles such as holes and rocks. Shooting sends one bullet forward along the buggy's path and, simultaneously, another straight up for defense against aerial attack saucers. The goal is to reach the next checkpoint and eventually the end of the course. Designed by Takashi Nishiyama, Moon Patrol is often credited with the introduction of full parallax scrolling in side-scrolling games.