Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space

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Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space

Developer(s)	Fritz Bronner, Michael McCarty
Publisher(s)	Interplay
Release date(s)	1992, 1993
Genre(s)	Turn-based strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Platform(s)	MS-DOS

Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space (BARIS) is a space simulation and strategy game for the PC, designed by Fritz Bronner and published by Interplay in 1992. The game is a computer adaptation of an earlier board game called "Liftoff!", also designed by Bronner. The player takes on the role of head of the space program for either the USA (NASA) or the USSR, dictating every aspect of the race to land on the moon, such as training and screening astronauts, designing hardware, and plotting routes and missions.

Some of the statistics (cost, weight, etc.) for space hardware have been adjusted to improve game balance, and many aspects of the game are generous simplifications. Still, BARIS includes most of the approaches to the Moon that were seriously considered (Apollo/Soyuz, Gemini, Direct Ascent [though the direct ascent capsules are different from the historical proposals]), plus a few others (Voskhod, and reusable minishuttles). So even simplified, the game offers a variety of ways to get there, each with its own advantages and drawbacks, and offers surprising replayability. You actually watch your missions run, and the game features movies showing the missions, from liftoff to splashdown.

The game was often criticized for being too difficult, with many more failures and much higher casualties than were actually experienced in the Space Race. It turns out that this was due largely to a couple of issues that were fixed in the final patch for the original (floppy) version.

Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space was re-released on CD-ROM in 1993; this version included 500 megabytes of mission movies, including archival footage from the space program. It also made the game a bit less difficult, especially for the American player. Lastly, it added two new multiplayer modes: Modem and Play-by-Email. (Note: The game doesn't seem able to actually use the modem in Windows, even when running in a DOS emulator.)

[edit] Future of the game

There has been talk of a sequel or spinoffs from the game. An official project has been started on SourceForge [1] to write a sequel, but it seems to have stalled. There are several attempts in progress to write spinoffs to the game, including one named "Blast Off!" in tribute to the board game "Liftoff!". There is also an effort underway to write some new patches to the game. Check the BarisWiki [2] link below for more information and the latest updates.