Buck Rogers - Planet of Zoom is the licensed Buck Rogers version, tied to the pulp sci-fi hero, of an arcade game Sega released in 1982 under the original name Zoom 909, a pseudo-three-dimensional scrolling shooter where the player's ship races at full speed against waves of enemies and obstacles that grow on screen as they approach. That sense of depth, achieved with sprites that scaled in real time, was a notable technical feat for early-'80s arcades.
With the Buck Rogers license, Sega aimed to capitalize on the character's popularity in film and TV at the time. The result is one of the most frequently cited pseudo-3D shooters of the era, a direct forerunner of the whole "tunnel" game trend Sega would keep mining with Space Harrier and After Burner.
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