Zaxxon
| Zaxxon | |
|---|---|
 North American arcade flyer | |
| Developers | Sega Ikegami Tsushinki |
| Publishers |
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| Series | Zaxxon |
| Platform | |
| Release | December 26, 1981 |
| Genre | Scrolling shooter |
| Modes | Single-player, multiplayer |
| Arcade system | Sega Zaxxon |
Zaxxon is a 1981 scrolling shooter developed and published by Sega as an arcade video game. It was developed with assistance from Ikegami Tsushinki, the same team who had programmed Nintendo's Donkey Kong the same year. The player pilots a ship through two heavily defended space fortresses, and the outer space areas between them, to confront the Zaxxon robot at the end of the second fortress.
Zaxxon was one of the first games to employ axonometric projection, which lent its name to the game. The type of axonometric projection is isometric projection: this effect simulates three dimensions from a third-person viewpoint. It was also the first arcade game to be advertised on television, with a commercial produced by Paramount Pictures for $150,000. The game was a critical and commercial success upon release, becoming one of the top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1982 in the United States.
Sega released a modified version as Super Zaxxon the same year and the Zaxxon-like shooter Future Spy in 1984.