Pleiads

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

Pleiads was a video game produced by Tehkan (now Tecmo) and Centuri, and was loosely based on an earlier game called Phoenix which was produced by Amstar in 1980.

This video game is a multi-stage space shoot-em-up in which enemy ships fly at you 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 centre 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 negotiate 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 you negotiate 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 and Pleiads.

Records

Christopher Benedict holds the official Guinness World Record for this game with 85,310 points recorded on May 31, 2008 at the 10th Annual Classic Video Game and Pinball Tournament held at the legendary Funspot in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire. Reference: Twin Galaxies, the Official Electronic Scoreboard

Console Information

{| class="wikitable"
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Developer
Tehkan
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Publisher
Centuri
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Main CPU
8085A (@2.75 MHz)
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Sound Chip
TMS 36XX (@0.247 kHz)
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Video res
208 by 248 pixels
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Screen Refresh
60 Hz
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Palette Colour
256
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Genre
Shooter
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Modes
up to 2 players
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Platform
Arcade
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Input
Left, right, fire, warp
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Arcade cabinet
Upright, cocktail
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Arcade display
Vertical orientation, Raster
-}