Solaris

i swear this game could have only been made by a demoscene coder

Solaris is a feast for the eyes and ears that cranks the capabilities of the 2600 to eleven. The starfields are filled with immense sprites of the planets and hyperspace jumps straight out of 2001, in a cinematic flair that is never threatening and which never places pressing urgency on the player(just like cutscenes in modern games that leave the player right out of the action).

The game itself plays as a sequel to Star Raiders, and incidentally was coded by the same person, and he managed to provide what is essentially the definitive version of his Star Raiders formula. The object in this title is the same, you warp in quadrants and shoot enemy ships, but this time the overarching goals is delegated to a Battlestar Galactica-inspired journey to find the mysterious planet named Solaris, and you need to skip from one galactic grid to another, to find it. While doing so you will have to land(and rescue) on other planets as checkpoints, and to gain your fuel resupply, but every second of it is laden with visually spectacular landing, fueling and taking off sequences and other procedures that there is not a dull moment in Solaris. It does not have the ingenious novelty of Star Raiders, and I slightly prefer that game's blue sparkly stardust, but Solaris is a game that can stand on its own and is a triumphant round that brings this old space shooting pioneer to a satisfying conclusion.