Solar Fox for the Atari 2600 was a tough call for the inclusion in this book. I love the game and still play it, but it has some of the most simplistic graphics of any cartridge produced in 1983 – a grid of squares, some enemy projectiles, and a trio of ordinary looking ships – and, more importantly, the play action lacks a key component found in Bally/Midway’s largely ignored coin-op game from 1981: shooting.
That’s right, an obscure maze shooter has been stripped of its firepower and still ranks as on of the greatest 100 console games of the era. The reason lies in a simple, but all-important three-letter word: F-U-N.
Even though you can’t blast the enemies, Solar Fox for the 2600 remains a blast to play. As the Video Game Critic (videogamecritic.com) said in his reviews, it’s an “interesting space game [that} combines elements of Pac-Man, Q*Bert, and Galaga.”
Check out more of the rich history of the industry in Brett Weiss’s books The 100 Greatest Console Video Games 1977-1987 and other great books available at his web site www.brettweisswords.com and make sure to sign up to get Old School Gamer Magazine for free by clicking here!
