Star Raiders Scratch Card
When a game comes bearing the Atari logo, you can be confident that fun comes as standard. Atari computers were once a staple in many video game-playing households in the 1980s and 90s before eventually going the same way as the Commodore Amiga. Now the brand has been revived, with Pariplay reimagining some of the Atari’s finest moments in scratch card form. While some players will mourn the way retro consoles have died, bemoaning the fact that online casino games aren’t a faithful representation of what Atari et al were all about, others won’t be so swift to judge.
Based on its own merits, and against those of other instant win scratch cards, this online Star Raiders game is ridiculously good fun and is evidence of how online casinos are leading the way when it comes to gaming innovation. There’s nothing revolutionary going on here, but this is nevertheless a very clean and lightweight game that looks the business and plays beautifully. Mobile-compatible and designed in HTML5, Star Raiders fuses classic arcade fun with contemporary design principles. It’s a marriage made in heaven.
Shoot for the Stars
Star Raiders is a space-themed game, as its name makes abundantly clear. The logo has a sci-fi vibe to it, one that takes its cues from Star Trek and Star Wars and every other space franchise with Star in its title. The action takes place somewhere between planet earth and the moon, for you can see both of these bodies looming large in the background. In the vast eons of space that lie between the two, an almighty battle is taking place for supremacy of the skies. Galactic foes do battle in their starcraft with the victor claiming the spoils, and the loser plummeting earthwards in a ball of flame.
As a scratch card game, Star Raiders doesn’t require you to get your hands dirty; you won’t be piloting the craft that flit across the spacescape in the background, put it that way. Instead, you’ve simply got to reveal the panels on the 3x3 grid with the aim of matching various spacecraft. The value of these craft and other themed symbols is clearly displayed in the paytable positioned to the left of the board, allowing you to tell at a glance what the high value symbols are.
Shoot and Scratch
Before you get steamed into the game, take a sec to set your bet. This couldn’t be easier: just click on the plus and minus arrows. The bet per game can range between 0.5 and 10 coins. The higher you set your bet, the higher the value of the payout you’ll receive for matching various themed symbols. There are three spacecraft symbols and three depicting medals of honour. With the max bet set, the spaceships are worth 10, 20 and 100. This leaves it to the medals to command the high values, coming in at 1,000, 5,000 and 100,000.
Star Raiders has an autobet option which can be set at between 5 rounds and 50 if you’d like to simply sit back and watch the action commence. At the start of each game, the symbols on the grid are concealed beneath nine Atari logos. It’s a logo, incidentally, which has stood the test of time, looking as classic today as it did 30 years ago. Great design never goes out of style. After buying a ticket you’ve got the option of clicking on each square in turn to reveal what’s lying beneath, be it spacecraft or medal. A flicker effect, like the sort applied to computer screens in sci-fi movies, neatly adds to the futuristic vibes. You don’t have to click on each square in turn though: pushing Reveal All will do the hard work for you.
One of the Shining Stars?
Star Raiders is a great little game, one that elevates this scratch card above the many inferior ones vying for your attention and your coins. While these things are naturally a matter of taste, most punters will surely agree that Star Raiders is infinitely more enjoyable than, say, Hollywood Stars or one of the many other instant win games that have low-key graphics and basic animations. Star Raiders is far more immersive.
One of the best scratch cards Pariplay have put their name to, this scratch card also benefits from having the Atari logo and with it the video game feel that’s all too hard to find at online casinos. This might only be a scratch card, but it’s one that’s beautifully executed and smoothly coded. No scratch card can be played forever, but while it holds your interest, Star Raiders will keep you transfixed and nostalgia’ing hard.
