L.E.M. (Lunar Excursion Module)
In the 1960s the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Apollo program with the goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. This goal was first accomplished during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969 when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit.
The L.E.M. (Lunar Excursion Module) was the lander portion of the Apollo spacecraft and was built by Grumman. Along with the Command Module, the L.E.M. was launched into space atop a Saturn V rocket. In space, the two craft docked and traveled to the Moon. Once in orbit of the Moon, the craft separated and the L.E.M. ferried two astronauts to the Moon’s surface. When the astronauts completed their mission on the Moon, the craft separated from its landing struts and returned to space to connect with the Command Module for the trip back to Earth.
The L.E.M. was a well built craft that never failed in any mission assigned to it. Can you keep its record untarnished?
Game Objective
In L.E.M. you are cast in the role of a Lunar Excursion Module commander about to land your craft on the Moon. Your objective is to safely land the L.E.M on the designated landing location without crashing the craft into the Moon’s surface or any asteroids that might be passing through the area.
Landing the L.E.M. safely will initiate a new mission to land the craft at a new landing location.
You get three crafts for each game and a bonus life is awarded after three and eight safe landings. Points are scored by landing the L.E.M. with as much fuel remaining on your fuel gauge as possible.
Screenshots
Additional Information
L.E.M. includes game cartridge and full-color, 28-page manual (manual contains instructions in English, Italian, French, German, and Spanish). L.E.M. is available in NTSC, PAL50 and PAL60 versions. Please select which television version you want. If you don't make a selection, you will receive an NTSC version of the game.
Get an L.E.M. Box!
If you'd like a boxed copy of L.E.M., please select "Box Upgrade: Yes" at the top of the page before adding L.E.M. to your cart. Our boxes are professionally printed and include a box insert to hold your L.E.M. cartridge in place. We want you to play our games, so we have not sealed or shrinkwrapped the boxes in any way, allowing you easy access to the game cartridge and manual.
These boxes are the same size as boxes Atari produced for their games "back in the day". They look great sitting on a shelf with your other boxed homebrew games, or alongside games from the classic Atari 2600 library. We only have a limited number of boxes for each game, and there is no guarantee they will become available again once our supplies are exhausted. Click on the images to the right to see larger photos of the box.
Number of Players | 1 |
Controller | Joystick |
Cartridge Size | 16K |
Programming | Filippo Santellocco |
Additional Programming | Mike Saarna |
Package Design | Brian Ostrowski |
Manual Text | Scott Lawrenz |
I've been a closet Lunar Lander junkie since that class field trip to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry in the late '70s. Like many of my male classmates I spent my lunch money on that game. I can't tell you how many millions worth of virtual NASA hardware I've crashed into the lunar surface since then.
Lunar Lander was never a deep game. You have a singular mission which is landing your module exactly on target at an appropriate speed. L.E.M. Improves on this formula by adding the roving asteroid in later levels. A welcome addition and fun improvement.
If you play the first few games the same way you might the arcade version you will likely waste a few million more in NASA hardware. Once you realize this is a new ship with new controls operating on an Atari 2600 you'll begin to appreciate L.E.M. For the perfect game it is. It maintains all of the original game's fun while slightly updating it. Simple, fun, addictive. It's still not a very deep game but it can be very satisfying in short bursts.