Last Starfighter (The)

Although the title suggests that this game is based on the 1984 movie, this prototype is actually an early version of the game that eventually became known as Solaris. Although the Atari 5200/400/800 game has some elements from the movie, the Atari 2600 version doesn't seem to resemble the movie in any way shape or form. The Last Starfighter is actually almost identical to Solaris with some minor gameplay differences. This is most likely because this game was never meant to be The Last Starfighter. Tod Frye was working on another version of The Last Starfighter, which never materialized. Atari most likely saw Neubauer's wonderful new game (which was called Universe at that time) and decided that it would make a perfect fit for the Last Starfighter license. This allowed Atari to get a Last Starfighter game out the door quickly and freed up Frye to work on other higher priority projects. After being canceled in 1984, Atari decided to release The Last Starfighter as a new game for the relaunch of the Atari 2600 in 1986. The problem was that The Last Starfighter license was owned by MCA who was currently suing Warner (who owned Atari at the time) over lack of payment. They renamed the game to Solaris and took out any references to The Last Starfighter. It appears that Atari chose the new name based on the pseudonym Doug Neubauer used while writing The Last Starfighter (notice how it says By Solaris at the bottom of the screen). Pseudonyms were nothing new for Neubauer, as he wrote many Atari 2600 games under the name Dallas North. It appears that Neubauer liked his Last Starfighter/Solaris engine so much that he actually recycled it into another game called Radar Lock.

Catalog description: 'Your lone spaceship is all that stands between the planet Rylos and the evil forces of the Ko-Dan armada. Based on the new Universal/Lorimar release, The Last Starfighter features dramatic first-person battle action, plus graphics that bring the movie home.'