Pleiads

This article is about the arcade game. "Pleiads" is also a spelling variant for "Pleiades" - see Pleiades (disambiguation).

Pleiads / Pleiades
Marquée of the licensed Centuri version spelled "Pleiades".
Developer(s)	Tehkan
Publisher(s)	^JP Tehkan ^NA Centuri ^EU Tehkan[1]
Platform(s)	Arcade
Release date(s)	April 1981[2]
Genre(s)	Shoot 'em up
Mode(s)	single-player
Cabinet	Vertical / Cocktail
CPU	8085A (@2.75 MHz)
Sound	TMS 36XX (@0.247 kHz)
Display	Raster 208 by 248 pixels 60 Hz 256 colours

Pleiads (プレアデス) is an arcade game from 1981^[3] produced by Tehkan (now Tecmo) and Centuri, loosely based on an earlier game called Phoenix which was produced by Amstar in 1980.

Gameplay

Pleiads is a multi-stage space shoot 'em up in which enemy ships fly at the player in waves in a similar fashion to games like Galaxian and Phoenix. Ships emerge from a mothership at the top of the screen and swoop downwards in a series of patterns which players must anticipate as they shoot the ships and avoid being obliterated by the Martian onslaught. There are four stages in the game. In the first stage the Earth space ship must defend the space station from Martian invaders who have the ability to transform from flying invaders, to walking invaders who build walls across the Earth city; these barriers must be destroyed. At the end of stage one the Earth space ship flies to the top of the screen to prepare to meet stage two. In the second stage the player encounters eight space monsters who must be hit directly on center to be destroyed before moving onto stage three. In this stage invaders emerge form a space ship at the top of the screen and swoop down on the player in sweeping attacks. In the final wave the player has to navigate through parked spaceships to dock on a landing pad as the screen scrolls downwards. Extra points can be gained in this stage by collecting flags as the player moves towards the landing corridor.

Name

The name of this game comes from the mythical Greek Pleiades, the seven daughters of the titan Atlas. The cabinet artwork on the game also spells out "Pleiades"; a mistake which possibly reflects the fact that there are different spellings of it in the Greek myth.

Legacy

Tecmo Hit Parade for the PlayStation 2 includes seven classic arcade games from the publisher's past, including:

• Star Force
• Bomb Jack
• Solomon's Key
• Tecmo Cup
• Pinball Action
• Senjyo
• Pleiads

Tecmo Classic Arcade for the Xbox includes eleven classic arcade games from the publisher's past, including:

• Star Force
• Bomb Jack
• Solomon's Key
• Tecmo Cup
• Pinball Action
• Senjyo
• Pleiads
• Tecmo Bowl
• Swimmer
• Strato Fighter
• Rygar

Pleiads was featured in the 1983 horror film, "Nightmares" in the vignette "Bishop of Battle." Pleiads also made a cameo appearance in the 1984 Coen Brothers directorial debut and neo-noir motion picture Blood Simple.

Records

Richie Knucklez holds the official Guinness World Record for this game with 279,090 points recorded on June 4, 2011 at the Annual Classic Video Game and Pinball Tournament held at the legendary Funspot in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire. Reference: Twin Galaxies, the Official Electronic Scoreboard

References

1. http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&db=videodb&id=2377
2. http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=pleiads&page=detail&id=1988
3. Pleiades on arcade-museum.com

External links

• Pleiads on MAWS