What was your first reaction to Solaris?

[Joey Kay]

Hey hey...

 

As I sit here for the second night this weekend trying to beat Solaris (I need a life...) I have been reflecting on my first day of playing Solaris back in the summer of 1988 when I bought it at Zellers...

 

Me and my best friend Lee went back to his place to play it, and I remember being absolutely astounded at the graphics... especially by the fact that the planet in the sky was a "perfect circle"! As with most Atari games, I had not believed that the picture on the back of the box was authentic... imagine my surprise when I played the game!

 

Any other "first encounter" stories with Solaris?

 

Cheers!

 

Joey

[Clint Thompson]

Through my collecting days I ran over Solaris and was quite stunned at both graphics and gameplay, one of the better or among the best 2600 titles imo.

[Feralstorm]

What caught my attention most when I first saw Solaris was that tilted Saturn-style planet that keeps showing up. I didn't know much about the details of Atari 2600 graphics at the time, but I did know that multicolor graphics that didn't change colors along horizontal lines was an EXTREMELY uncommon thing on the 2600.

[rasty]

Unfortunately my 1st encounter with Solaris happened quite late in my life, but it didn't fail to get my attention for the extremely polished graphics and mostly for the extremely tight controls (IMO).

I also realized I'd probably need a manual if I wanted to play it throughly, something that to this day I still inted to do!

 

Regards,

Rasty.-

[Damon Plus]

Easy: WOW!!!

[Mountain King]

I actually couldn't believe how good this game was. It became one of my favorite games. Needless to say I played it a lot and spent many a day and night cursing those damn cobra ships. I did finally beat the game (using a rapid fire device and a boss jostick) and is probably up there as one of the most satisfying video game moments of my life. Took me over a year to finally beat and I have NEVER been able to repeat that event.

[Room 34]

I was still keeping my Atari dreams alive in 1989 while all of my friends had an NES. (We were in 9th grade at the time.)

 

I had a job bagging groceries, and with a wage of a whopping $3.69 per hour (minimum wage at the time), I was rolling in dough.

 

I usually would go to the local Shopko to check out the home entertainment section. In addition to a $3.99 cassette display (where I eagerly picked up Rush's "A Farewell to Kings" on one visit), they also had a ton of video games. Mostly NES, of course, but they also had a display of old Atari 2600 games (since the 2600 Jr. was still on the market), most selling for $6.99. Of course, it was mostly crap like Home Run in the gray boxes. But then I spotted this "new" game called Solaris. I had never seen the red box design, and this was the only one they had. (This shows the main reason Atari didn't go anywhere in the late '80s... bad marketing and distribution!!!)

 

Anyway, I was immediately intrigued by this game and had to buy it immediately... and it did not disappoint!

 

I played and played and played Solaris and it almost helped me to believe I didn't really NEED an NES.

 

(Of course, most of the time back then I was playing Round 42, Digger, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, and Pharaoh's Tomb on my Tandy 1000 EX! But when I wasn't at the computer, I was in my room with either Solaris or Yars' Revenge in the 2600.)

[Inky]

I was totally astounded by the graphics, but owing to my poor attention span, I think I gave up on the game after about a month.

 

Not that tit wasn't fun, but rather that it was frustrating.

[Inky]

Wow... Freudian slip in the above post....

[Zonie]

I think it's cool, like an up graded star raiders. They even used the same pic on the box. The only thing I don't like is the reverse control scheme in the red zone planets. Kinda goofy. Even my wife watched me play it and thought it was kind cool, all without rolling her eyes.

[+Random Terrain]

Since I owned Moonsweeper first, I wasn't that impressed:

 

http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html...wareLabelID=313

 

Moonsweeper and other Imagic games made my jaw drop, but by the time Solaris came out, it wasn't that big of a deal, especially since I had a Commodore 64, an NES, and an Atari 7800 (for a little while) pulling my attention away from the Atari 2600.

[kisrael]

I think it's cool, like an up graded star raiders.  They even used the same pic on the box.  The only thing I don't like is the reverse control scheme in the red zone planets.  Kinda goofy.  Even my wife watched me play it and thought it was kind cool, all without rolling her eyes.

Yeah, technincally my first reaction was "hey....isn't that the box art from star raiders, but in b+w? atari must be getting cheap"

 

'Cause I lived that old star raiders box art, i drew a lot of cockpits based on that.

[Vic George 2K3]

When I first saw it on a late-80s Atari 2600 TV ad:

 

An improved version of Buck Rogers: Planet Of Zoom.

[Gregory DG]

My first reaction?

 

W

[Room 34]

The only thing I don't like is the reverse control scheme in the red zone planets.  Kinda goofy.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who dealt with this by just holding the joystick upside-down!

[StanJr]

yeah, I used to do the upside down joystick trick too!

I remember playing Solaris LONG after the NES had dominated the industry. I had put away almost all other VCS games in favor of my shiny new NES, but Solaris kept the VCS alive in my house for many more summers.

 

I loved it, was blown away by it and felt that it was as good as anything I was playing on the NES.

 

I'm still pretty wowed by it today.

[Zonie]

The only thing I don't like is the reverse control scheme in the red zone planets.  Kinda goofy.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who dealt with this by just holding the joystick upside-down!

 

Can't do that when playing it on PCAE or on the Dreamcast emulator. I have since wired a 9-pin Dsub to a DC controller and can now play it that way until I get the actual cart. I think I want the box for this one.

[Big Player]

First time I saw Solaris was the All-For-One store in the mall. Must have been 1992 or 93. This was when they were selling all the liquidated 2600 games NIB for $1.

 

I looked at the front of the box and put it back. I passed on it. Mainly because I had not heard of the game and thought it must have been one of those crappy games made during the crash. At the time I had no idea Atari kept making new games for the 2600 into the late 80's. I knew they re-issued the system, but I thought they just re-issued the games too.

 

I finally got Solaris a few years ago for $1. Loose and one of the dirtiest carts I've ever purchased. Poetic justice I guess.

[tillenterprises]

When I first saw it on a late-80s Atari 2600 TV ad:

 

An improved version of Buck Rogers: Planet Of Zoom.

834710[/snapback]

 

I always assumed it was an update of Star Raiders. It even uses some of the same sound effects

[Flojomojo]

I was somewhat surprised to see a batch of new Atari games out for sale ... I saved my pennies and got every one I could find, especially Desert Falcon and Solaris (along with Pitfall II, which I always wanted).

 

Solaris = the mutt's nuts. Nothing else for VCS (or most other machines, for that matter) came close.

[+FujiSkunk]

The weird thing is, I can remember wanting Solaris more than I can remember the first time I actually played it.

 

Around 1987-1988, my local Kay-Bee Toys still had a relatively decent selection of 2600 games. Even so, finding any particular title was a hit or miss affair, and the selection was always churning. So, one day I see Solaris, a game I hadn't seen before. Being an Atari-obsessed geek even back then, I had to have it. I had no clue what it was about, I just knew I had to have it. Unfortunately, they only had one box, and I didn't have the money for it when I first saw it. Even more unfortunately, a friend of mine, also an Atari gamer, vowed he would buy it before I would.

 

Naturally, this meant war.

 

At one point I hid the game in the display, hoping it would stay hidden until I could save up enough money. Later, when I finally got the money, I started begging my mother every which way I knew how to take me to the mall. She promised she would that following week, but that wasn't enough to stop me from begging. Finally, some friends of hers said they were going to the mall and offered to take me along. I cheerfully agreed, and rubbed my friend's nose in it. The only problem was, this happened to be Easter Sunday; the mall was closed!

 

The good news is, when Mom finally did take me, my precious Solaris was still there. Bought and paid for, it was now mine! Not my friend's. MINE!!

 

The game itself didn't disappoint. I don't remember my first play, but I do remember later bragging about how the graphics were as good as any NES game's.

[ComputerCollector]

Well, I bought my copy new in the box from O'Shea for 80 cents a few years back.

As usual, I was delighted to have a new Atari game! i thought that the game had good graphics. However, Ive never been a huge fan of these type of space games, so I never played it too much, although I was impressed with it in many ways. What really turned me off about the game was the chart screen, which Im too dumb to want to try to figure out how to use.

[Zonie]

I just picked up a copy boxed for $6 at my local "good" game store. The box was ratty, but since I don't collect the boxes anyway I'm good with that. Now I can play it on the real hardware.

[Godzilla]

When I first played the game I was floored. It looks better than any comparable game on the atari 8 bits, it carried on Star Raiders (an absolute favorite of mine. My xegs Star Raider II cart is one of my all time favorite atari 8 bit games,) and it shows to this day what the 2600 is really capable of. Also, I have yet to see anything that really competes with it on the 2600...

[+FujiSkunk]

Also, I have yet to see anything that really competes with it on the 2600...

 

You could say Radar Lock, but that's kind of cheating.