Solaris (Atari 2600)

Solaris is a space flight simulation, which appeared in 1986 as a video game for the Atari 2600 game console.

Background

The game should start its development in hot Universe 1984 and was renamed The Last Starfighter, since Atari was about to publish a game to the recently released film The Last Starfighter. Based on the video game Crisis in the United States, while the Atari gave up all such activities after the takeover by Jack Tramiel, the game was not released. In 1986, when Atari was again active in the video game area, the developer of the game, Douglas Neubauer was asked again and the game eventually published under the final name Solaris.

Action

The aim of the game is, on behalf of the Atari - Federation to reach the eponymous planet Solaris and rescue the pioneers located there before the planet is found and destroyed by the enemy Cylons.

In the game itself, there are three situations: the galactic scanner, space battles and the flyover of a planet. In galactic scanner the player navigates his spaceship (Star Cruiser ) on a tactical map that displays all objects in play. The ship may be, staying in 16 quadrants, each with 48 fields, the card each indicating a quadrant has four outputs in adjacent quadrants. As the game proceeds in detail, depends on what is on the targeted fields.

On planets you can see the spaceship in a three-dimensional view from the rear. In hostile planet ( Zylon Planets ) stranded cadets can be saved ( Space Cadets ) by flying over. Can all cadets to be rescued by a hostile planet, you get an extra life and the planet will be destroyed. On friendly planet ( Federation Planets ), it is possible to fill up the spaceship and repair.

In space you can fly through corridors, previously but their guardians must be eliminated. In addition, there are minefields ( Blockaders ) and a variety of enemy spacecraft fleets, some of which show specific behaviors.

Reviews

While graphics and story were generally praised, the background music was mostly rated worse since Solaris does not play music, but only sound effects.

Trivia

• Solaris is sometimes regarded as the successor of the Atari game Star Raiders, since this was also programmed by Douglas Neubauer and local opponents are also called Cylons.
• The instructions for the game consists of notes Developer Douglas Neubauer and was almost literally taken over by Atari, because you mistakenly believed there, that this was already the formulated game instructions.