Thrust+ Platinum Edition Review | Atari 2600
This is an extremely well designed and fun homebrew game. It also has one of the best opening musical scores of any game I have played, a catchy tune. It is my understanding this version supports numerous controllers including an Atari 2600 compatible foot pedal controller.
Listen to that catchy title screen music…
Game Sounds:
Dying
Enemy Fire
Firing
Leaving Planet
New Man
Opening Music
Picking up pod
Tractor Beam
You have been tasked with recovering pods off of far-away planets before you run out of fuel and before the planet goes nuclear. Your ship whose design seems to borrow from Asteroids, rotates in all directions allowing you to shoot in all angles. The difference here being you have to contend with the relentless pull of gravity.
Therefore you must counter that force by using the games namesake, “Thrust”. You have to be careful with the over application of thrust because you do have a limited amount of fuel. Your fuel collection is cumulative, meaning your fuel does not reset after the completion of a level, so once you run out the game is over. You earn a new ship every 10,000 points.
Your pod is within reach, but destroy those security robots first…
Along the planets surface and within the caverns, there are nicely placed fuel drops. In order to retrieve the fuel canisters, you must maneuver your ship above the fuel and use your tractor field by pressing back on your joystick controller, this also activates your shields. Similarly, to retrieve the pod, you must maneuver over the pod, use your tractor beam while also using thrust. The planet is laden with tactical security robots that constantly fire torpedoes toward you. You have the choice to either destroy them, by firing your torpedoes, or use your shields to avoid being destroyed. You can also fire at the nuclear reactors. Doing so will temporarily disable the security robots. However firing too many shots at the reactor will cause it to go nuclear, leaving you with ten seconds to flee the planet. If you destroy the reactor and escape the planet with the pod, you will be nicely rewarded with a generous bonus.
Let’s blow this pop stand…
When towing the pod and attempting to destroy the reactor, you have to be careful, since your fire can hit the pod with the resulting explosion destroying your ship. With the pod in tow, neither the pod nor your ship can touch any of the walls. However unlike your ship, the pod can pass through the reactor. This is a bit of a break because maneuvering with the pod takes can take a while to get used to. The game is generous with checkpoints, which I was not expecting, so when you lose a ship, you may not have to start over at the beginning.
Once you surpass six levels on the easy setting, the gravity reverses. This is sort of like turning your world upside down. This is one place where the game is a bit unforgiving. By the time you get to this point you may be down to your last few ships, and it can be quite challenging to learn reverse gravity. Ran out of ships? No problem, just start all over from level one until you get it right.
There are five game variations that adjust the difficulty, but personally I cannot imagine intentionally increasing the difficulty. This is already a difficult game to master.
This game boasts five different variations which can be chosen by using the game select switch on your console. The right difficulty switch toggles between NTSC and PAL version.
Over on the Highscore.com website, there is one record listed:
| Rules | Record Holder | Points |
| Expert/A | swlovinist | 15,000 |
This game is clever, has polish and again, is extremely fun.
You have to remember the Atari 2600 has an extremely limited hardware design. It’s greatest limitation is its lack of memory and what the homebrew community and the original Atari programmers had to be creative and work within these limitations, and that is exactly what Thrust+ Platinum programmer Thomas Jentzsch has done.
This is my favorite homebrew game on this platform. Highly recommended.
*****
Youtube Original Post Date: 11/26/2015
