Games based on The Last Starfighter

[Lady Jaye]

I've been re-reading early DP zine issues and in #5, there's the mention of a then-recently found proto for The Last Starfighter for Atari 5200. Since I was curious about it and wondered whether it was a 5200 version of Solaris, I did some research and I realized that the history of games based on this movie franchise is almost as convoluted as the history of Wonder Boy games (ok, not nearly as convoluted, but still...).

The only game officially released under the name The Last Starfighter came out in 1990 for the NES. In reality, it's a modified port of the C64 game called Uridium.



The Atari 2600 proto of the game, programmed by Star Raiders' creator, Doug Neubauer, was released as Solaris with few changes made to the game.



http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/tlsf/tlsf.htm

The Atari 5200 version of the game was never released, whereas the 8-bit computer version was eventually released as Star Raiders II. Despite similarities between Solaris and Star Raiders II, they are two distinct games, the latter being programmed by Gary Stark and Bruce Poehlman rather than Neubauer. What remains to be seen is whether they were truly independently developed or not (Neubauer implies on his website that Solaris was truly his creation). I think it'd be worth asking him what he knows of the 5200/8-bit versions of TLS/Star Raiders II.

http://www.atariprotos.com/8bit/software/tlsf/tlsf.htm



http://dougneubauer.com/atarisolarismanual/

[jb143]

Just last night I played the "actual arcade game" that someone made a few years ago to as accurately as possible recreate the game from the move. It was pretty cool but pretty hard.

I know it's not an official game, just fairly coincidental.

[skaar]

GREETINGS STARFIGHTER.

You have been selected by the Star League to defend the Galaxy against Xur and the Ko-dan armada.

Love this movie. Will have to check this "Actual Arcade Game" out.

[YoshiM]

Just last night I played the "actual arcade game" that someone made a few years ago to as accurately as possible recreate the game from the move. It was pretty cool but pretty hard.

I know it's not an official game, just fairly coincidental.

The one that was made for Windows? I played that too. Hard as hell unless you get some controllers set up. I haven't touched it in some time, but I did get a little tingly when the opening screen came up and played through....

[skaar]

I remember trying it ages ago or trying to and it wasn't happy. It's on my to-do list for today.

[98PaceCar]

www.roguesynapse.com has the official release of the homebrew version.

[jb143]

The one that was made for Windows? I played that too. Hard as hell unless you get some controllers set up. I haven't touched it in some time, but I did get a little tingly when the opening screen came up and played through....

Yeah, I just happened upon it last night while while looking for something else buried on my PC. It might be more playable with an arcade control setup.

A good friend of mine absolutely loved this movie when he was a kid and said he actually wrote Atari inquiring about the arcade game. I'm pretty sure he said he got a letter back from them. It was probably just a typical "sorry kid, it's just a move" reply but I'll ask him about it just in case he has anything interesting to add.

[RARusk]

Didn't "Starblade" at one time start out as "The Last Starfighter" as well?

[SteveSpeeze]

inspired by the fact that this movie is on demand cable and netflix this month lol.
"Us vs Them" first pick.
Starfox and Total Eclipse . 2nd and 3rd

[InsaneDavid]

Didn't "Starblade" at one time start out as "The Last Starfighter" as well?

Yup, that's what I was going to say. StarBlade is as about as close as you're going to get for a commercial release, my all time favorite arcade game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrpvTnEtI0Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVeGrIfLDhM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7HQ_MeY2WE

[jb143]

Well, I heard back from my friend who contacted Atari about the game back in the day. He can't remember what he heard back from them. Oh well.