Solaris is a game for the Atari 2600

Atari 2600

The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...

 published in 1986 by Atari

Atari

Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...

. The game was programmed

Computer programming

Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...

 by Douglas Neubauer, who owns the copyright

Copyright

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

 to the game and the Solaris trademark

Trademark

A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

.

Gameplay

The galaxy of Solaris is made up of 16 quadrants, each containing 16 sectors. The game has 3 distinct environments:

• The tactical map, in which the player navigates through the quadrant and choosing which enemy to fight.
• Space battle ensues whenever the player navigates into a hostile battlegroup via the tactical map
• The player may also descend to planets. there are 3 types of planets in the game:
  • friendly federation planets, which provide for refueling, but may also harbor a planet defense mission if they are under attack. If players allow a friendly planet in a quadrant to be destroyed, that quadrant becomes a "red zone" where joystick controls are reversed and booming sounds are overheard.
  • Enemy Zylon planets, in which the player must rescue all cadets, gaining an extra ship when all cadets are rescued.
  • Enemy corridor planets, in which the player must traverse through a fast-paced corridor.

Players are able to "warp" between the sectors, during which they must attempt to keep their ship "in focus" to lower their fuel

Fuel

Fuel is any material that stores energy that can later be extracted to perform mechanical work in a controlled manner. Most fuels used by humans undergo combustion, a redox reaction in which a combustible substance releases energy after it ignites and reacts with the oxygen in the air...

 consumption rate. Fuel must be carefully managed, as an empty tank results in loss of one of the player lives.

Space enemies range from the easy to the frustrating - pot shot-loving "pirate" ships, mechanoid ships and aggressive "cobra" ships. Each battlegroup has at least one enemy flagship, which shoots out fuel-sapping drones. There are also 4 kinds of ground fighters - stationary guardians, gliders, targeters and raiders. The ultimate goal of Solaris is to reach the planet Solaris and rescue its colonists, at which point the game ends in victory.

Reception

Solaris is widely hailed as having some of the best graphics on the Atari 2600. It is considered by many as a sequel to Atari's 1979 hit Star Raiders

Star Raiders

Star Raiders is a video game for the Atari 8-bit family of computers, released in 1979 and programmed by Doug Neubauer. It was also later ported to other Atari computer and game platforms...

, as both games feature an enemy race known as "Zylons", and both Solaris and Star Raiders were written by Neubauer. Solaris was at one point going to be based on The Last Starfighter

The Last Starfighter

The Last Starfighter is a 1984 science fiction adventure film directed by Nick Castle. The film tells the story of Alex Rogan , an average teenage boy recruited by an alien defense force to fight in an interstellar war. It also featured Dan O'Herlihy, Catherine Mary Stewart, Robert Preston, Norman...

, while the Atari 8-bit version of The Last Starfighter was re-named Star Raiders 2

Star Raiders 2

Star Raiders II is a video game released in for the Atari 8-bit home computers, and later several other home computers and game consoles. The game was originally developed as part of a tie-in with the movie The Last Starfighter, which featured an arcade game of the same name as part of its plotline...

.

External links

• Solaris at AtariAge
  AtariAge
  Atari Age was a magazine distributed to Atari Club members from 1982 until 1984. It was published by The Atari Club Inc., a subsidiary of Atari, Inc.-History:...
  
  
• Interview with Douglas Neubauer
• A text rendering of the game's manual
• Douglas Neubauer on the atari solaris manual