Bandai Missile Invader variations.

[Neil UK]

I had my two Bandai Missile Invaders in front of me the other day and I noticed there were subtle but definite differences between them.

The game in my collection was made in Japan (game on the right). I am making an educated guess that it was one of the earlier production games because I think the instructions on the back of the game are incorrect. It says that the maximum possible score with your 50 missiles is 250 which makes sense at 10 points for a spaceship. The game I am soon selling was made in ‘Taiwan R.O.C’ and states on its instructions that the maximum possible score with 50 missiles is 245 points, (what happens to the other 5 points?) . The font on both instruction labels in Identical except for the maximum score on the Taiwan R.O.C. game which is in a different font and bold.



I had a look at the instruction manual in the Museum and it states that the ‘best score’ is 245 so I am guessing that some games were produced before the error was noticed and corrected for future games. I would assume there are some manuals out there with a top score of 250 too.

http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Manuals/Bandai-MissileInvader.pdf

Other differences between the two countries games are that in the Taiwan R.O.C the invaders move exactly the same as the Japan game but just a little faster plus the overall tones of the games sounds are somewhat higher in pitch. The Japan game has star style screws compared the standard Phillips screws in the Taiwan R.O.C. game. The Japan game has lighter coloured plastic by the score which makes the score much brighter and the ‘MISSILE INVADER’ letters on the front of the Japan game are more slender than any other game I have seen on the Museum (including the toy catalogs) and Ebay.



Out of curiosity I had a look at the back of Missile Invaders ‘older brothers’ namely my Super Missilevader and Super Galaxy Invader. The Missilevader states the maximum score as being 250 which came as a surprise as the back of the Galaxy Invader states you get up to 100 shots scoring up to a maximum of 20 points per shot, which if my calculations are correct would make the theoretical maximum number of 2000 points !






After having played the game a couple of times I realised that 2000 points would be virtually impossible to score but I did get 94 points so with some practice 250 should be quite attainable.

Sorry to ramble on but I found the differences quite interesting .

Neil.

[nicknicknickandnick]

Interesting -- reminds me of paper money bills and the variations that collectors of those look for.