River Raid

German index

With this game, the German BPjS (Federal Examination Office for Youth-Endangering Publications) expanded into the area of computer games. Put on the German index for being, among other things, a "para-military training game for kids" on December 19, 1984. For about 18 years, this game was not just an adult only game in Germany, but it was also illegal to advertise for it and therefore (as advertise also means the pure presence on a store's shelf) it could only bought per request. However, it was eventually de-indexed by the BPjS in January 2003 after a verification request by Activision. Otherwise it would be on the index until December 2009 (25 year statute of limitations law appendix; originally, it wouldn't be de-indexed automatically).

Inspiration

River Raid was based on the arcade game Scramble; it was made into a vertically scrolling game as this allowed for smoother scrolling.

Programmer Bonus

The original Atari 2600 version sold very well. As a result the game's programmer Carol Shaw was awarded a cash bonus equivalent to her annual salary.

River Raider Patch

Players who were able to rack up 15,000 points or higher were eligible to receive the "River Raiders" patch from Activision if they sent in a screenshot to the company. Here is a picture of that patch at AtariAge.

Awards

• Flux Magazine
  • April 1995 (Issue #4) - #87 in Top 100 Video Games of All-Time* Retro Gamer Magazine
  • January 2008 (Issue 46) - #3 in the “Top 25 Atari 2600” Games poll* Zzap!
  • May 1985 (Issue 1) - #50 'It's the Zzap! 64 Top 64!'

Information also contributed by Big John WV, PCGamer77, and Xoleras