Project Nebula is my personal favorite 3-D space simulation game.. loosely based on the Atar 2600 hit Star Raiders. Although the constant white-noise sound does get annoying (simulating your ship's engines), the game play itself is great. There are 4 different main levels of play: Target Shoot:Beginner, Target Shoot:Advanced, and then the beginner and advanced full blown Star Commander versions. EACH of these has 10 levels of play within them; this basically controls the speed of your opponents.
Both joysticks are used; the first one controls your firing and direction of flight, the second controls your speed. You also have numerous keyboard commands to bring up maps, to enter hyperspace, etc. The best level of play is the Star Commander:Advanced option: instead of just losing energy when you are hit (requiring an eventual visit to a space station to recharge, which has to be lined up just right, and you have to be at the right speed), you can also damage various components of your ship (see the items on the right of the above Map screen). I will tell you, there is nothing more frustrating watching yourself slowly die because of lack of power, but your hyperspace is damaged so that you have no control over which sector you are hyper-spacing to, but your long range sensors are working fine so you can see EXACTLY where you WANT to go.
Title: Project Nebula
Author: Robert Arnstein
Publisher: Radio Shack/Tandy
Released: August 1981
Requires: Color Computer 1,2 or 3, 4K RAM, cartridge, 2 joysticks.