Any good strategies for Imagic's Atlantis?

[sirlynxalot]

I love this game but I am terrible at it. I have been casually playing it for decades and I can reliably shoot ships with the middle turret, that's all good and straightforward, but the side turrets might as well not exist in terms of how useful they are to me.  I simply have never been able to get used to the massive delay between when you shoot a bullet and when it eventually gets to the opposite side of the screen to hopefully hit an enemy. As a result, I'm never able to effectively use them - I can't glance at an enemy, see how fast its going, and anticipate when I should fire the side turrets so that the bullet will hit them.  There also seems to be an extremely small window between when the player can notice a new enemy coming onto the screen, and when the player must react in order to shoot a bullet from the side turrets and have it hit that enemy - particularly after the first few levels when the enemies start moving much faster.

 

Is there something I'm missing here?  Clearly people have gotten very good at this game and maxed out the score... were they just able to get very used to the side turret delay?  I basically have never gotten more than a few levels in.

Edited August 17, 2022 by sirlynxalot

[Leonard Smith]

You can take the spray and pray approach with the side turrets (just blindly fire off random shots while focusing on the bulk of your damage with the center turret).

It's a tough game, and just like in the arcade Missile Command, I hate the delay introduced by the side auxillary turrets.

[Chris+++]

Practicing helps a lot. With enough play, it becomes second-nature to anticipate the position of an enemy vs. where your shot's going to end up.

Having said that, if I fire from one of the side guns, I always fire two quick shots in a row. One of them almost always hits the target.

I rarely use the side guns, even considering the higher points, because longer survival = a higher score in pretty much any game.

 

[davyK]

There's a version (game #2) that disables the centre cannon. Select that and PRACTICE!!   

Edited September 4, 2022 by davyK