Vorrak, Level One

All right, let's get this over with.  If there's a lesson to be learned from Vorrak, it's that security systems are pretty much useless once you learn their patterns.  Then again, that's the lesson from all them Pink Panther movies.  But isn't that the power of video games right there?  You get to be the rogue ship flying into enemy territory, circumventing the slipshod security systems of the ill-guarded lair.  Now, you take a game like "The Dreadnaught Factor"... THAT one gets much tougher with each progressive level.  Of course, The Dreadnaught Factor is programmed in machine language, and doesn't rely on Atari Basic at all.  Ever the tradeoff: Basic games are easier to program, but run orders of magnitude slower than machine language games.  It's theoretically a programmer's paradise these days with JavaScript, the perfect compromise language.
So, unlike Laser Gates, there's only you in the Player/Missile department, and there's no stopping for fuel.  Laser Gates is one of the only, and maybe it is the only, side-scrolling shoot-'em'up game where you actually have to make a stop for fuel.  All the others, you have to shoot fuel dumps in order to fuel your ship... convenient, but that never works with my car.  And I've shot up a lot of gas stations, believe me.  Nope, you still have to pump your own fuel.  What's that all about?  It's like it's some kind of valuable commodity or sumpthing.