I hadn't played this game for 17 years until a couple days ago, but I never forgot it. When I was younger, it was my favorite game on the Atari 5200.

I was really impressed by the David-and-Goliath concept of your little ship taking on nothing but one huge cruiser (not unlike Shadow of the Colossus, huh?), and I never forgot how loud and abrasive the audio was. The rumble of the Dreadnaught ship is intimidating, even a bit frightening! The mechanics of the gameplay are pretty unique for a shooter, as well. You take multiple runs over the huge ship, trying to take out as many cannons, power sources, and engines as you can without getting torched by laser fire. After each run you make, the Dreadnaught ship gets closer to the earth (it travels more slowly if you knock out the engines, though!). There is no set number of "lives" really; every time you die it counts as one run and the Dreadnaught ship advances normally. But if the ship gets to Earth (or whatever planet it is you're defending) the game ends.

The Dreadnaught Factor is an intense, unique experience that I found so profound, I couldn't forget it after 17 years. I finally got off my ass to set up a 5200 emulator just so I could play TDF, and I'm pretty fascinated with it again. The reason I started this thread was to draw attention to this game that I've never seen anybody on DP talk about, and to ask what everybody else thinks of this game, if they have any inside stories or info about it, etc.

So, am I the only one who digs it?