Firefox

Firefox © 1983 Atari, Inc.

Firefox is an impressive jet fighting simulation that really shows off the capabilities of the 2600. Upon booting the game the player is shown a hanger with several jets ready to launch. Pressing the fire button opens the hanger door and brings the player to the cockpit view. The cockpit screen has five different options that are slowly highlighted one by one. To select an option the player must push the button when the appropriate one is highlighted. Holding the button down will continually select that option until the button is released
Missile – Although this option has a status bar next to it indicating how many missiles are left, it is non functional in this prototype. This option will turn to Guns once combat begins.

Defense – This is another non-functional option. There is a status bar next to it which is assumed to represent how much damage the jet can take. It is unknown what selecting this option would do though.

Radar – Switches to the radar screen as long as the button is held down. The radar screen shows the location of any enemy jets.

Faster – Increases the speed of the jet. The longer you hold the button down the faster the jet will go until the speed reaches its maximum. As you increase your speed, a bar will appear next to the Slower option indicating how fast you are going.

Slower – The opposite of the Faster option. Acts the same way except it will decrease your speed. Holding down this option will cause the speed bar next to it to decrease.

Also shown on the cockpit screen are your fuel, altitude, score, status bar, and what is assumed to be three status indicators.

To take off the player must hold down the Faster option to increase speed. Once in the air, the player can fly around for a short amount of time before an enemy jet shows up (visible on the radar) and imitates combat mode (as indicated on the status bar). Once in combat mode the Missile option turns to Guns and is permanently highlighted. Now you can push the fire button to shoot at the enemy jet. This is harder than it sounds as the jet moves very fast and it’s hard to keep it in your crosshairs. Unfortunately that’s where the fun stops as there doesn’t appear to actually be a way to shoot down the enemy jet, so the combat never ends. If the player presses reset at this point the cockpit view will still show Guns instead of Missiles and it will be permanently highlighted so the game cannot be started. The player must completely turn the game off and on again to start over.