Description of Stargate
Stargate, later marketed as Defender II, is a little-known sequel to Defender. The game added a few elements to the Defender gameplay including the inviso, some new enemies, and the stargate.
The stargate gave you a quick escape route, and allowed the really skilled player a chance to get huge bonus points by flying into the gate with humanoids in tow. If you manage to bring in more than four, you will warp four waves forward. The inviso makes you invisible for as long as you hold the button down (and as long as you have any left) and also allows you to destroy any enemy you fly through with no damage to you.
Although the gameplay remains as addictive as ever, I found Stargate harder to control than Defender. Doubtless this is due to the addition of new features like the inviso which require key presses to activate, but it still doesn't feel very intuitive. Keeping the keys pressed also gets tiresome after a while - but maybe I'm just not a good enough arcade player to feel accustomed to it.
It is still arguably better than the old method in Defender which requires you to fly out of the playing field entirely to activate secondary weapons. If you enjoy the original, you will probably like this sequel too. It just doesn't grab me the way Defender does. Recommended.
Review By HOTUD
External links
Captures and Snapshots
Comments and reviews
Zep 2023-11-07 0 point
Arcades on the shore would buy a dozen Defenders or more and line them up. It was that popular and ate more quarters than Pac-Man. Stargate was my fav in 81, but it never took off like Defender. Simply too difficult for most to continue playing. I have one in my garage. It’s currently a giant paperweight.
squid 2020-11-23 2 points
"Stargate, later marketed as Defender II, is a little-known sequel to Defender"
"Little-known"? Oh my god the sheer magnitude of that LIE ...
Cruise 2019-02-23 3 points
Man I rember those days fondly. A completely different world. One in which I, at 11yrs. old, would get on my ten speed and ride down Evergreen to Schoolcraft with a pocket full of quarters (from mowing neighbors lawns) and hit the Sonnys Hamburger joint (kinda like Top Hat if you are from the Detroit area). They had the nearest Stargate Defender which I would spend hours trying to master. Never got the high score, but it was fun trying!! SATURDAYS were the best in the 80's!!
Mr Vampire 2019-02-16 1 point Commodore 64 version
"Sounds like a good idea for a TV show. If you’re into that sort of thing." - Jack O'Neill
Cheerio Mikey 2017-07-23 0 point DOS version
Frank must have traveled or machine was moved around?, maybe CPU -DOS was copied?
I was in Alexandria "Becon Hill", VA -- Mall where theater was located.
Spent 8-10 hour days dropping 1 Quarter and spending that time to receive 1.5-2 Million Scores and always fighting some guy named Frank.
Is that not ODD?
Many kids would come back, hour after hour looking to get a shot at StarGate. I never knew it was Defender 2. I never played Defender at all and I did find Joust to be kinda Cool.
I just found out the game StarGate was an offshoot of defender, after some 39 years.
That game was about the only one besides Robbie the Robot version of ? , some other game that had little giros which lifted the doors inside the game and let the game move ahead. A person would have to get Giros spinning and then go into the game, yet at the same time keep the Giros going.
Nobody seems to remember the Robby the Robot and I can not remember the game. Maybe Old Age means that the Rememberer is not working as much as the forgetterer?
The Games/Arcade games where as good as the Concerts for $3.50 and $5 bucks, with free tee shirt and poster.
Now days everything is just being copied. Movies and about everything else. Where did the 50-80s go?
Can we all just REBOOT ?
Clever1969 2017-03-08 0 point
Is this safe for my phone? Will it download to my Android Coolpad? If not does anyone know what I can get to play on my phone? Would greatly appreciate it.i loved this game when I was a kid.
Thanks gamers if anyone has gotten this let me know.
Thanks again for your time and email me at Beccaboo1977rc@ Gmail. Com
RAB 2016-02-03 2 points
My name is Richard burgin and i am from Rosedale Queens in New York and i used to play stargate defenders which was an arcade game in the 80s i had an ongoing battle with i guy named Frank J Santos i remember his name like it was yesterday and this was more that 35 years ago , he constantly beat my high score on the machine that was in the 7/11 on Hook Creek blvd. One morning before school i started playing and played for a straight 29 hours my high score was over 29 million and i believe that is a score that will never be beaten i never met Frank Santos who signed his name F.J.S. as that was a game that allowed you to put up a whole sentence when you got the high score . It was the best game that i have ever played , it was the beginning of the phenomena that is now gaming , in the days of pacman asteroids tempest donkey kong and centipede and countless others what a wonderful time for gaming and a wonderful time in my life !!!
El Conquistador 2014-05-23 0 point DOS version
I LOVED Stargate. Spent SO much of my hard-earned money on this game in the arcade before I got good. By the time I was done, I could play one (two quarters, 7 lives) game for 7 or 8 hours. I recall it took approximately 1 hour to get the first million points, then ~45 min. for each subsequent million. My high score was around 10 Million. My favorite version of the game was one in which the arcade owner modified the fire button programming so that holding it down produced rapid fire. Although you would accidentally kill humanoids sometimes due to the rapid fire feature, it was still a fun addition.
On a related note, "El Conquistador" was my name across the top of the leader board when I held the high score on that machine. What is amazing to me is that there were better players in my city, mostly college kids. I was a middle school kid on summer break, so I had time. What college student had 8 hours to sit in an arcade?
Texcentric 2013-07-13 0 point DOS version
This was my all-time favorite video game back when I still played video games. I never understood the appeal of Asteroids which seemed tedious in comparison. Stargate was like Robotron on steroids. The accelerated pace of Stargate required the full engagement of both hands along with quick reaction time & was not conducive to cigarette smoking.
OM 2013-02-07 0 point DOS version
...This one tanked in the arcades because Williams' tweaked with the control response and made the fighter sluggish. They also removed the glitch/bug/feature where if you let off the smart bomb and shot forward at max thrust you'd kill the landers that were on the next part of the screen you flew through. Put a Stargate next to a Defender, and you'd see one quarter dropped in a Stargate for every hundred in a Defender. Arcade I worked at when Stargate came out actually ordered the conversion kit and changed it to a Defender before the first six months were done. Thing was so damned unplayed that the console didn't have any cigarette burns on it!
Write a comment
Share your gamer memories, help others to run the game or comment anything you'd like. If you have trouble to run Stargate, read the abandonware guide first!
Download Stargate
We may have multiple downloads for few games when different versions are available. Also, we try to upload manuals and extra documentation when possible. If you have additional files to contribute or have the game in another language, please contact us!
DOS Version
39 KBArcade ROM
- Year: 1981
- Publisher: Williams Electronics, Inc.
- Developer: Vid Kidz
Atari 2600 ROM
- Year: 1984
- Publisher: Atari Corporation, Atari, Inc.
- Developer: Vid Kidz
Commodore 64 Version
Similar games
Fellow retro gamers also downloaded these games:
