Game of the Day 4/19/2016: Solar Fox (VCS)

[celerystalker]

Solar Fox for the Atari VCS is a port of Bally's arcade game of the same name. You must pilot a space ship along a series of stages called racks, collecting solar cells scattered across them. Your goal is to clear as many racks as possible as fast as possible in order to put up a mighty score. There are 25 unique racks before the game begins looping, and the score turns over at a million.

Collecting cells isn't as easy as it sounds, as sentinels border the outskirts of each rack, firing away at your intrepid little ship. You must weave in and out, dodging and darting along the way. By default, you move faster than the shots, putting reckless pilots at risk of ramming fire they've already dodged. To prevent this or just offer precise control in tight spots, you can hold down the button to severely reduce your speed. You'll want to go as fast as you can when possible, as each stage is timed with the words "skip a rack" slowly disappearing in the lower left corner of the screen. Clear the rack before it's gone and you can bypass the next rack while collecting a hefty bonus.

Every five racks, you get a challenge rack with the word "challenge" in the lower left corner. There are no sentinels in these stages, but the timer is fast. Finish in time for a huge bonus and a secret letter. These eventually spell out "Helios," which was for a contest CBS Interactive was running in 1983. Still... for pride, right?

As you move on, formations continue to change, sentinels fire faster, and solar cells begin to require multiple passes in order to be picked up. This demands extra thought and quick reflexes if you want any hope for your skip a rack bonus, and really causes the challenge to ramp up. It happens pretty quickly, but Solar Fox doesn't take long to reel you in. Games are fast and addictive, and the change from maze chase games to a blistering dodge-fest is a fantastic change of pace. Odds are, if you like a good score attack and give it a try, you're going to be playing for awhile. With solid graphics for the time, decent sound effects, and speedy gameplay, there's little not to like for a classic game fan with Solar Fox.

Played this one?

[Leo_A]

Not only have I played this one, it was the first videogame that I have any recollections of playing. I got it for Christmas along with a Coleco Gemini back in the 1980's and it's still a favorite to this day.

It's also a rare example I feel of a home conversion, particularly on the 2600, that improved upon the arcade version. I still would've loved to have seen Solar Fox make it onto a Midway arcade compilation though.

[Niku-Sama]

this is one that I had played too I do remember that it was a game I felt that was held back by the quality of the controller.

I often times would try to go faster than the controller could handle when changing directions. but at the same time I got my Atari in the early 2000's with this game and my previous experience with an Atari was a card game at my grand parents house about 10 years before so I could have been age over quality come to think of it

[CRTGAMER]

Your reviews are great, the screenshots really help to show off a game.



I have the C64 version of Solar Fox on cartridge, a neat game. The "Pacman" open field dot munch while avoiding the other ships a different take on another of the genre, Cross Fire.

[celerystalker]

Thanks! I like doing these topics as a way to get some conversation going here, and I always like talking games. That Commodore 64 version looks slick, and it looks to have the sentinels on all four sides of the rack like the arcade game as opposed to the VCS only having them at the top and bottom of the screen. I haven't had the chance to play crossfire... did it have any console ports? I didn't have any computers until I was out of high school in the late '90s, so classic computer gaming is a pretty big blind spot for me.

Leo-thanks for sharing the Christmas story! This was a game with no fun back story for me... I picked it up for $2 at a store. Those games from birthdays and Christmas always form unique attachments, though.

Niku-if you want to spend more time with the 2600 without straining your hands, it's ridiculously easy to make an arcade stick with actual arcade components. I can PM or post a thread with pics if you want.

[tom]

I never visited arcades, for me all Atari games were original games.

Great game, for me it was about reflexes too. Had to get the mystery word, to find out what's going to come next.....Kinda like the Coleco games, we played those for hours and hours because the manual mentioned 'The fun of discovery' meaning 'full of special features to discover', but I never found any of those.....

[CRTGAMER]

Thanks! I like doing these topics as a way to get some conversation going here, and I always like talking games. That Commodore 64 version looks slick, and it looks to have the sentinels on all four sides of the rack like the arcade game as opposed to the VCS only having them at the top and bottom of the screen. I haven't had the chance to play crossfire... did it have any console ports? I didn't have any computers until I was out of high school in the late '90s, so classic computer gaming is a pretty big blind spot for me.

CrossFire came out on the 8 bit computers. It had a neat (though difficult) Twinstick control using the keyboard; shoot one direction while moving in another direction. Look for Targ (though different game play) under Mame. Not sure of any console releases for CrossFire, but then the 8 bit computers did have game carts and plug into a regular TV thru Composite or SVideo.

[Steve W]

Solar Fox was a good 'un. Into the late '80s I was still trading Atari games, this time with co-workers, and I got Solar Fox out of it. It makes me think of the arcade game Piranha, the clearly hacked version of Pac-Man where they've essentially removed the maze. I've only ever had the chance to play the arcade version once (outside emulation), and was surprised how well it translated to the 2600.