Cosmic Avenger

Cosmic Avenger
Cover art for the ColecoVision port
Developer(s)	Universal
Publisher(s)	Universal
Platform(s)	Arcade (original) ColecoVision
Release	Arcade: NA: July 1981
Genre(s)	Horizontal scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Cabinet	Upright
Display	Horizontal, raster, standard resolution

Cosmic Avenger is a horizontally scrolling shooter arcade game developed and published by Universal Entertainment Corporation and released in 1981. Like Universal's Lady Bug, Cosmic Avenger was not a hit in arcades, but found success and a larger audience as a launch title for the ColecoVision console. It was not ported to other systems. Wes Hupp holds the official record for this game with 117,290 points on November 17, 1982.

Mark Bussler from Classic Game Room notes that Cosmic Avenger is the first continuous horizontal side-scrolling space shooter (though it is actually predated by Konami's Scramble). Cosmic Avenger looks quite well and provides a rewarding challenge to the player.

The ColecoVision version of Cosmic Avenger was reviewed in Video magazine in its "Arcade Alley" column where it was described as "great fun" and as a game that "packs more than enough excitement in its three screens to satisfy any lover of arcade-style action games". Although reviewers noted that the game is "not as free-ranging as [those] in which the ship can scroll left as well as right", it was praised for its "beautiful graphics", and it was suggested that Cosmic Avenger might herald the coming of a "scrolling shootout" trend in home video games. In September 1982, Arcade Express reviewed the ColecoVision version and scored it 9 out of 10.