Hover Strike
Hover Strike — frequently asked questions
- Is Hover Strike on Steam?
- No. Hover Strike is not distributed on Steam, so there is no Steam Charts or SteamDB player count for it. Its live popularity is tracked here via Twitch viewership instead.
- What platforms is Hover Strike on?
- Hover Strike is available on Atari Jaguar.
- When did Hover Strike release?
- Hover Strike was first released on December 31, 1995.
About Hover Strike
Terrakian Pirates have taken over a colonized planet under Federation control. They've set up an atmospheric cannon, making invasion impossible. Your job, as a hovercraft pilot, is to launch a pre-emptive strike on the planet's surface. Hover Strike for the Jaguar is a mission-based tank game. In each mission, you will drop to the surface of the planet, destroy some targets, and then return to your ship in orbit. The hovercraft you pilot is heavily armored and includes various weapons systems to take out enemies and targets.
Summary via IGDB.
Hover Strike on Wikipedia
Hover Strike is a shooter video game developed and published by Atari Corporation exclusively for the Atari Jaguar first in North America in April 1995, then in Europe on May of the same year and later in Japan around the same period, where it was published instead by Messe Sansao. Taking place in a future where the Terrakian Pirates have seized control of a colonized foreign planet, players are tasked with piloting an armed hovercraft vehicle in an attempt of rescuing the captured colonists and obliterate the invading alien forces from the surface of the planet before the Federation armada arrives.
Source: Wikipedia (text under CC BY-SA 4.0).
Game details
- Platforms
- Atari Jaguar
- Developer
- Atari Corporation
- Publisher
- Atari Corporation
- Game modes
- Single player, Co-operative
- Themes
- Action, Science fiction
Details via IGDB.
Collector value & authenticity
Atari Jaguar · PriceCharting sold data · Verified 2026-07-24
- Region
- NA+EU
- Released
- 1995
- Authenticity
- Low
The floaty first draft — its CD sequel and a cancelled Rebellion game both did this concept better.
A vehicle shooter with handling best described as approximate; the CD follow-up (Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands) added texture-mapped terrain and CD audio without fixing the float. The definitive version of this idea on the platform is arguably Skyhammer — the cancelled Rebellion game Songbird revived in 2000. Worth owning mainly as one of the handful of titles Japan's import channel carried.
How it was made
Atari Corporation developed the Atari Jaguar version. Credited: designed by Hank Cappa, Harry Kinney, Lance J. Lewis; programmed by Cary Gee, Craig Suko, Denis L. Fung; art by Chris Thompson, Donald Wang, Ed Pearson; music by Brad Wait.
What the press said at the time
| GameRankings (aggregate) | 45% | |
| AllGame | 3/5 | |
| Atari Gaming Headquarters | 5 / 10 | |
| Computer and Video Games | #164, July 1995 | 69 / 100 |
| Consoles + | #44, June 1995 | 70% |
| Electronic Games | #68, July 1995 | C− |
| Game Players | #72, June 1995 | 65% |
| GamePro | #71, June 1995 | 13 / 20 |
| Hobby Consolas | #48, September 1995 | 78 / 100 |
| Hobby Hi-Tech | #5, July 1995 | 6 / 10 |
| Joypad | #44, July 1995 | 85% |
| LeveL | #5, June 1995 | 80 |
| MAN!AC | #20, June 1995 | 54% |
| Mega Fun | #33, June 1995 | 62% |
| Micromanía | #8, September 1995 | 74% |
| Next Generation | #6, June 1995 | 2/5 |
| Player One | #54, June 1995 | 90% |
| ST-Computer | #112, September 1995 | 75% |
| Última Generación | #5, August 1995 | 38 / 100 |
| Ultimate Future Games | #8, July 1995 | 18% |
| Video Games | #43, June 1995 | 60% |
The contemporary press could not agree on this one: comparable scores run from 18% to 90% across 19 publications. Scores are printed in their original scales.
Cartridge & preservation record
Cartridge ROM capacity 16 megabit (2 MB), measured from the preserved cartridge image.
Catalogue part number J9009E
Cartridge data from the No-Intro preservation database (metadata only — names, sizes and checksums, no game data).
Worth knowing
- It began as Battlezone 2000. Atari was planning a Jaguar update of its 1980 arcade game Battlezone as early as August 1993, and Battlezone 2000 was among the first fourteen titles greenlit for the console alongside Cybermorph and Tempest 2000. The design drifted far enough from the source that it became an original game instead. Confusingly, Hand Made Software then shipped an actual Battlezone 2000 on the Atari Lynx in 1995 — a different game by the same abandoned name.
- Its source code was released on Facebook. In May 2017 the game's source code was made freely available through a Jaguar-dedicated Facebook group — an unusually informal home for a commercial console game's source, and typical of how much of this platform's preservation has actually happened.
Before you buy
Common and cheap. The cartridge and the CD sequel are different games with different names — don't conflate them in listings.
Authenticity & condition — Atari Jaguar
Specific to the format this title shipped in
Buying a Jaguar cartridge
Cartridges are the durable half of this library — the risk is provenance, not decay. The platform has an active post-commercial scene, so the question is usually which era a cartridge is from rather than whether it still works.
- Ask for a photo of the label edge and the cartridge back. Reproductions are usually printed on adhesive photo stock and sit proud of the label recess.
- Donor shells are the common trick: sanding marks on the back, or adhesive ghosting where an older label was lifted, are the strongest signals.
- Cartridges are region-free on this platform, so a cheaper PAL copy plays on a North American console — a price difference is not evidence of a fake.
Hover Strike screenshots
Watch on YouTube
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