American Theft 80s - Retro Arcade Game Strategy Guide

Mission giver Albert requires the player to score 100 points on each of 3 Arcade Machines based on classic retro video games.

This guide is intended to provide strategies to achieve high scores.

Table of Contents

Space Force

Note: Credit goes to Flinch3542

Based on Asteroids

Press the down-arrow to stop moving.
Because the screen wraps-around, try firing ‘away’ from fast targets.
A rock heading directly at the ship is the most difficult to hit, and therefore dangerous.

While there is a temptation to shoot at maximum intensity without turning and wait for each rock to travel into your ‘deadly clothesline,’

One will hit significantly more targets by habitually turning the ship slightly back and forth when spraying bullets.

Pieces of exploding rocks spawn-in slightly off-center.
The time it takes your shots to arrive makes targeting imprecise, especially at longer distances.

Based on Breakout

The falling upgrades include fast ball, multi-ball, destructive ball, and, my favorite, Bigger Paddle.
If you get the ball bouncing on the top of the bricks, it really helps to loiter where the ball will end up if it abruptly comes out the same way it went in.

The ball rebounds off your paddle at an angle influenced by where it strikes the paddle.
An edge strike will rebound more towards that direction, while a center strike tends to go more straight-up.
To clarify my choice of the soft words influenced, more, and tends,
the player’s aim-based rebound-control may not have as much influence as desired or expected, when the ball is going extremely fast or at a tricky angle.

Based on Space Invaders

It is strongly suggested to keep the ship just ahead of the enemies in the direction they are moving aka ‘leading’ them.
Parking up and pew-pew’ing does not work well because the enemies can shoot while they move, repeatedly destroying a stationary ship no mater how much it fires.
Moving immediately after firing a shot or two is essential to success.

Please note that while the enemies move in a completely predictable pattern, their seemingly random shots hit more often than one may expect.
The enemies seem to also know that ‘leading’ trick and will quite often hit a ship moving at constant / top speed.