Solaris was released by Atari Corporation in 1986 for the Atari 2600. The date matters here: the 2600 had launched in 1977 and by the mid-eighties was technically long obsolete. Solaris belongs to the late titles that squeezed far more out of the machine than it was built to give.

The game combines two viewpoints. On a star map you choose a destination and see where intervention is needed; once you arrive, the display switches to a forward-facing cockpit where the fighting happens. Alongside shooting you have to watch fuel, which can only be replenished in certain places, so travel carries an economy of its own.

Technically this is one of the most complex programs ever written for the 2600. The console had only tens of bytes of RAM and assembled its picture line by line in real time, which meant the illusion of flight and the galaxy map both demanded extraordinary timing work.

The content is built for a single player and is fairly demanding — enemies accumulate, fuel drains and the design leaves little room for mistakes.

The Atari 2600 was still on sale in the second half of the eighties as a cheap alternative to newer consoles, so Atari kept issuing fresh titles for it. Solaris ranks among the best of that late phase, written when programmers knew the hardware down to its last quirk.

If you are curious what space action looks like on 1977 hardware, Solaris starts straight from the browser on OldGame.cz.