MegaZone

The Space Shuttle could abort right up until the SRBs lit – and it happened. They had main engine ignition and then shutdown before the SRBs lit. The main engines started before the countdown reached zero for a few reasons. One was to give combustion time to stabilize and the computer to give a go for launch. Another was that the ignition pushed the shuttle into the ET and the entire stack would sway. It was timed so that it would be coming back to vertical just as it launched. But once the SRBs lit it was going to leave the pad one way or another.

This game appeared in the arcade in the Rotterdam Square Mall in Rotterdam, NY and I completely mastered it over the summer break from college. It was more of a reflex and memory tester. Like all of the laserdisc games there were a limited number of patterns and once you remembered them you were able to anticipate everything and just walk all over it.