Zaxxon

n/a

Zaxxon
System(s): Arcade, Apple II, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit family, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, DOS, Intellivision, MSX, Sega Master System, Sega SG-1000, TRS-80, TRS-80 CoCo, Virtual Console, ZX Spectrum
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
ESRB PEGI OFLC

Zaxxon is an arcade shoot 'em up game released in 1982 by Sega. It was the first video game to use axonometric projection, which is where the "AXXON" name comes from. The player controls a starship shooting enemies in a fortress.

Zaxxon was quite successful for Sega, and hence it was ported to the Apple II, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit family, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, DOS, Intellivision, MSX, Sega Master System, Sega SG-1000, TRS-80, TRS-80 CoCo, and ZX Spectrum. More recently, the Arcade version of the game has been made available through the Wii's Virtual Console service. There has also been numerous clones of the game, such as Zaksund and Z-89 for the TRS CoCo. It was also included as part of the Sega Mega Drive Collection and Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection compilations. It should be noted, however, that the Atari 2600 and Intellivision ports of the game use a third person perspective rather than an isometric one, most likely due to console limitations.

Zaxxon was also turned into a board game by Milton Bradley in 1982. Sega, Bandai and Coleco have also released handheld versions of the game.

The game was followed by Super Zaxxon, Zaxxon 3D and Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000, neither of which were as successful.