Boss Fight - Mothership (Phoenix, 1980)

For my new Boss Fight feature, I wanted to talk about the game that kick started the whole thing. Unfortunately there is some debate about which was the first arcade game to feature a boss, as I said in my 'What is a 'Boss Fight'?' post. So of the three main contenders, I've gone for the most famous, the Mothership from Taito's Phoenix. This brute turns up on the fifth level of the game and in true end of level guardian style, it's tough and a little bit cheap.

The challenges facing the player were the swarms of minions who attack you, the thick, protective undercarriage, which requires a shed load of bullets to penetrate, the scrolling purple shield, which you either had to survive long enough to blast apart or have the skill to always hit the same spot when it went past -- and all the while avoiding missiles from small alien target sat in the middle. However, if you can land a single hit on the alien, the whole thing blew up and the game started again -- only harder. It's as tough a boss fight as you'll ever face and a great place to start if you want to test your mettle against gaming's most icon bosses.

MTW