Shoot'em Up! / Shoot'em Up! - Rescue · 1982

Protector II

Published by Synapse Software · Developed by [n/a]

atarimania.com — atari-400-800-xl-xe-games-protector-ii-4155

Information

Genre: Shoot'em Up! - Rescue
Language: Machine Language
Controls: Joystick
Players: 1, Demo
Programmer(s): Potter, Mike
Graphic Artist(s): [n/a]
Sound: [n/a]
Cover Artist(s): Boxell, Tim
Year: 1982
Publisher: Synapse Software
Developer: [n/a]
Country: USA
License: Commercial
Medium: Tape, Disk, Cartridge
Rarity: 8 (Tape), 8 (Disk), 8 (Cartridge)
Serial: -

Votes / Statistics

Rating: 7.3/10 · Votes: 32 · Downloads: 3,004 · Hits: 13,184

Additional Comments

Load with OS-B.

Many thanks to Rob Catron for the cartridge scan!

Missing original tape image!

Screenshots (3)

Cover Art (5)

Ads (1)

Book / Magazine Reviews (1)

Electronic Fun · April, 1983 · Rating: 3 / 4

Some people say that 1982 was the year of the sequels. Synapse's contribution to the sequel craze is Protector II and, as hard as it may be to believe, it is the sequel to Synapse's classic, Protector.
The idea of Protector II is to save the people (all 20 of them) of a great city from being kidnapped by vicious aliens who, besides fishing, also enjoy throwing a human or two (or four) into a volcano. You, of course, are the city's only defender and have to pick up the citizens of the beleagured city and carry them to the relative safety of the city of New Hope. Then you have to pick them up again and carry them to a secure mountain fortress, which for some inexplicable reason is full of enemy cannons and missile bases. To keep you from being bored outside the fortress, there is some native wildlife which enjoys flying around and munching up the occasional fighter as well as laser cannons and missile bases on the ground.
Protector II has some excellent features like being able to decide how many ships you want to start with. You get to choose a set of three or five. You also get to pick the starting level of difficulty, ranging from one to six. The game also has some very nice special effects, such as gravity and the way your man parachutes to safety when you get hit.
But there are some things missing from this otherwise excellent game. For example, you can't shoot the laser cannons and the missiles can only be destroyed when they turn red, which happens roughly every 50 years or so. The game would have been much, much better if there was more opposition.
Frankly, Protector II doesn't have the potential to generate the same cult following as the first but that doesn't mean it's a bad game. Considering the state of the games market today, it is one of the better buys for the money. I have to admit that I prefer the original.
You can fly right through buildings without suffering any damage, so you don't have to maneuver around them.

Comments (5)

Steve — 30 Mar 2021
Been going thru a lot of my old Atari 400 games. Synapse is one of best software companies. This game is very disappointing. It's very boring (it's like Defender but you're only moving people), you don't really get to shoot much. It's very finnicky and super easy to crash your space ship. Finally, it's a one level game and your done. I don't remember this game much from 40 years ago - probably bought it, played it a few times, then put it aside.
Nick Bensema — 29 Apr 2016
We had this cartridge, and it was one of my mother's favorite games. I liked it, and also the translucent plastic case was neat. This is one of those Synapse games that doesn't work on an XL/XE machine because. I heard on the ANTIC podcast it was because they used a BRK operator code in the music routine. Has anyone ever patched this game to work on the XL without a translator disk?
rave.N — 4 Nov 2015
I also heard it in an A8 program named "Music Master 2" by "(C) 1985 Jolly Roger Software, Inc." which is a bunch (26) ripped audios from popular games. They botched some like Mule, most are nothing special, it's good to hear some music looped without gameplay sound effects. The only other music from it I liked are Boulderdash and "Blue Max: 2001". The thing about MM2 Protector, which drew my attention to this music track in the first place, is MM2 changed the "voice(s)" to synth sounds a lot more like a castle pipe organ than the plunky voice the game uses.
Andreas Koch — 4 Nov 2015
One can hear a modernized version of this classical melody in the game "Spider" by Secret Games (also in the demo-version of Spider). The newer sound version was composed by Kemal Ezcan... http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-prev-spider_4926.html
rave.N — 2 Nov 2015
lovely Classical melody in both Protector and Protector II is said to be Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Solfeggietto in C minor