March 18th
Today's challenge is: “Back in the day” Game.
Let's go way back, to a console I've very rarely had the chance to play: The Atari 2600. I actually don't own any Atari console, but that will change in the future, I'm sure, as I've been looking up for 7800 offers here and there. Anyway, one of my friends (sup Jay) has a small Atari collection, and he once tried to impress me with one of the games he had. It worked, and I went and bought it afterwards, despite not owning the console to play it on.
The game he made me play was
Solaris, a very late release for the console. I'll do my best to explain what the game is, because I don't really get it, and I just go into a crazed frenzy whenever I play it. It's an open world action game, and you're a lone spacecraft pilot travelling across the galaxy, fighting against alien squadrons, conquering planets (or blowing them the fuck up, more on that later), invading enemy bases, picking up people on planets, stuff like that. Like I said, I don't have a clue what's actually going on, but it's somewhere around those lines, and I'm not going to research it, I'll discover what it's about by myself in the future.
So, for a game I know so little about, why is it my pick for today? BECAUSE IT'S AMAZING, OH FUCK IT'S AMAZING. There is literally nothing on the console that looks and feel as advanced as this game, save for maybe some modern day tech demos if you wanna count those. The game graphics may be ahead of their time, and the whole concept might also be, but those sounds are pure Atari 2600 gold. You know the classic explosion noise on the console? Well, variations of it play non stop through the game. It's crazy.
Let's talk about the planet blowing thing. You can select a planet on the map if you wanna visit it, and you'll “jump” there afterwards. You'll fly close to the ground and do whatever it is you need to do near ground level. Eventually, you'll come across a small building that is basically a gas station, you can go there to refuel your airplane. What you can also do, however, is shooting it down. It doesn't blow up just the gas station, oh no, somehow I guess those are always connected to the planet's entire fuel supply. So after shooting it down, your spaceship will automatically speed up, as the whole planet starts to collapse, then after takeoff, debris from the planet will fly all over the place from behind you and the whole galaxy will try to hunt you down. That is so fucking crazy, I literally can't even. Oh and you better believe that the Atari's soundchip is having a fucking seizure while this happens.
Sadly the above gif runs at too few FPS, so you can't see the planet flashing and breaking down before the ship escapes.
Ah, just thinking about it makes me happy, and I wanna play it. Exclusive to the glorious Atari 2600.