Aliens from the communist planet of Rooskee are invading peaceful, democratic planets and turning their inhabitants into "Communist Mutants." The communist mutant armies are controlled by the Mother Creature, a strange alien who has gone mad due to irradiated vodka.

Communist Mutants From Space was released in 1982 by Arcadia on the short-lived Starpath Supercharger cassette system for the Atari 2600. The Starpath system expanded the base 2600's ram from 128 bytes to 6,272 bytes, almost 50 times more. This allowed the system to display more detailed graphics, as well as enabling more intricate game play. There were only 10 retail releases for the Supercharger.

Gameplay is pretty standard alien invasion stuff, but even though 1982 was the height of Cold War, adding the nefarious threat of Mother Russia was still pretty unique.

You start the game with 5 cannons with which you defend the peaceful, Democratic planets from the dreaded red invasion.

Your enemies consist of eggs deposited by the enemy mother creature which hatch into Invaders and attack, swooping and firing on your lone cannon. You fire into the ranks scoring 10 points for each unhatched egg and 60 points for attacking invaders. As you destroy your enemies the mother creature is constantly refilling the ranks unless you can score a lucky shot past the invaders and eggs to destroy her. Do this and destroy the remaining invaders and you'll advance to the next wave.

It's fun. The controls are responsive but feel a little slippery compared to Atari Space Invaders. Scores rack up slowly so getting a high one really feels like an accomplishment. But points can't match the satisfaction of knowing that you are defending free and peaceful democracies from the evil communist scourge.

Watch Amy and I play Communist Mutants From Space.