Critical Mass is a Galaxian remake. It provides some extra configuration settings like allowing vertical movement of your ship and setting the difficulty level.

DOWNLOAD: http://criticalmass.sourceforge.net/critter.php
OS: Windows, Mac, Linux

The Lego site has an online Quest for R2-D2 that’s pretty fun. It has several levels and allows you to save your game data. I found it a bit more challenging to control the character with the keyboard (it sure is easier to play Lego Star Wars on the Wii!) but with a bit of practice you’ll get the hang of it. Nice little game.

Play Quest For R2D2 online at the Lego site:http://starwars.lego.com/en-us/FunAndGames/CloneWars-Quest-For-R2D2.aspx

Note: You’ll need to install the Unity web player to play the game. There’s a link to download it at the bottom of the Lego Star Wars site.

If you can’t get enough of Tetris and Pong, then you might like to try the mind boggling Tong! In this crazy but addictive game, you play both Pong and Tetris simultaneously, each game having an effect on the other. For example, if you miss a Pong ball, your Tetris blocks move up a row.

With your mouse, you control all 4 Pong paddles located on each side of the Tetris screen. Then with the arrow keys, you control your Tetris blocks. I still need lots of practice to get the hang of this game, but I’m finding it’s pretty fun!

DOWNLOAD: http://www.nongnu.org/tong/
OS: Windows, Linux

The original Ant Attack was a ZX Spectrum game (it was also ported to the Commodore 64). It’s a nifty game where you play a hero (or heroine) that has to enter a city controlled by huge ants. Your objective is to seek out and rescue a captive then escape the city together (without getting eaten alive by the ants, of course!).

Welcome to the new city of Antescher! There’s a 3D remake of Ant Attack available at http://www.encho.demon.co.uk/aa3d/! You can jump up on a wall (up arrow and spacebar) where ants can’t get at you, and you can throw a bomb (ctrl) at them – but watch out that you don’t blow yourself up too! You can use your mouse to control the direction that you throw the bomb or change your viewpoint.
This game can be played in either a First Person or Third Person point-of-view (tab).

It can be a bit challenging to find the captive in the higher levels. Keep your eyes open for flying hearts – they are emitted by the captive and will give you some hints as to where he is being held.

The ants have a degree of intelligence and once they have detected you will gang up on you and attack. If you keep your distance and are very sneaky, you might be able to avoid attracting their attention. Also, they don’t see as well if you lurk in the shadows or play a night game.

The game comes with three maps but each map has several levels of difficulty. It also comes with a map editor to create your own maps!

DOWNLOAD: http://www.encho.demon.co.uk/aa3d/
OS: Windows

Jogos Studios brings us a Windows Q*Bert remake. A unique feature of this game is that you can rotate the view with the left and right arrow keys.

DOWNLOAD Q*BERT: http://www.evl.uic.edu/spiff/class/cs426/projects/fall2003/JogosStudios/index.htm
OS: Windows

Enigma is a puzzle remake of Atari’s Oxyd. The goal is to roll your marble around so that it hits the special Oxyd stones (usually they are located along the level’s outer walls, like the black stones in the screenshot below), which then open to reveal a coloured tile. You can open two at a time and have to match each pair together to solve the level. That sounds easy right? The fun part is that each level has tons of traps and puzzles that make it really challenging to get to those Oxyd stones!

Believe it or not, this free game has over 1,000 levels; that should keep us all pretty busy for some time!

Download: http://www.nongnu.org/enigma/index.html . Enigma is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

PouetChess is a portable 3D chess game for Windows and Linux. It comes with 8 levels of difficulty; the default is normal. You can change the camera view according to your preference with the arrow keys.

Great little game for when you can’t find anyone to play chess with!

[See Part 2 of this series for a Space:1999 Eagle simulator game]

Here are all the available Space:1999 paper craft models I’ve found on the internet. Unfortunately, I did not find one of moonbase Alpha…yet.

Eagles
Beginner’s Version: An excellent model to start with since it’s a bit simpler. This one should be printed with a colour printer. Download at http://www.domatine.com/site.htm

Advanced Versions:The following two Eagles are the same except that the second one is coloured. I found these PDFs on zealot.com – a forum for model builders. The plans do not have a permanent home elsewhere on the internet, so I’m uploading them directly here. They are excellent and realistic models and are really challenging to build.

White Eagle: This Eagle can be printed on a black and white printer. white-eagle-2.pdf

Danoman Eagle: This Eagle looks best printed in colour. danoman-eagle.pdf

Moon Buggy
Build the moon buggy used in Space:1999. A reference photo is included in the download link.

Hawk
Jay’s Box of Sc-Fi Card Toys has a whole bunch of free paper spaceship models to download. He has a lot of Star Trek ships too. From Space:1999, he has a Hawk available. These ships were seen only in the “War Games” episode from Season 1. Some good reference photos of the Hawk can be found at the Space:1999 Catacombs.

Download this model directly at http://www.savefile.com/projects/1034167 and scroll down to Hawk Mk. IX.

UPDATE: Here are 2 additional papercraft models for a Space:1999 commlock and laser gun

Commlock
The commlock used for communications and opening doors. http://users.sdccu.net/chthulhu2/models/commlock.html

Stun Gun
A paper model of the guns used on the show. http://users.sdccu.net/chthulhu2/models/stungun.html

[See Part 1 of this series for a Space:1999 video game]

You can finally fulfill your dream of flying an Eagle over Moonbase Alpha! Just follow these steps and you’ll be ready for lift-off in no time.

STEP 1: Download Orbiter
Orbiter is a free space flight simulator that can be downloaded at http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/. It’s a no-install app, so all you have to do is unzip the downloaded file and you’re done!

STEP 2: Go to OrbitHanger to download Space:1999 add-ons

OrbitHanger is located at http://www.orbithangar.com/ and is a source of all kinds of add-ons for the Orbiter space simulator, including the Thunderbirds add-ons – remember that awesome 60s TV show?

All you need to get started is the Moonbase Alpha add-on, which can be found here http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2858. This version (V5a) includes the necessary New Eagle add-on.

Note that there are plenty of other Eagle packs available at this site for you to experiment with as well.

STEP 3: Unzip the Moobase Alpha V5a add-on into your Orbiter directory

After you unzip the add-on, click on orbiter.exe.

In the Orbiter Launchpad, you’ll see Moonbase Alpha; select it and choose an Eagle to fly!

STEP 4: Eagle 1 Ready for Launch!

If you’re an experienced flight sim flyer, then you’re probably ready to go. As for me, I needed some basic training first because I couldn’t get my Eagle off the ground . If you’re like me, then I recommend you go through some of the documentation on the Orbiter website at http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/manual.html to help you get oriented. Good luck Commander!

In Part 3 of this series, I’ll show you how to build your own Eagle, as well as other models from Space:1999!

I’m a huge fan of the 1970’s TV show Space: 1999: a massive nuclear explosion on the moon knocks it out of Earth’s orbit and sends it out on a journey into space along with the personnel of Moonbase Alpha (and all their cool spaceships called Eagles). I know, I know, the premise is not very scientific, but it was the 70s and it had great actors (Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Barry Morse), a funky opening song (in Season 1 anyway), awesome special effects, thoughtful writing and did I mention the cool Eagles?

I’m currently re-watching this series and wish I had some Space:1999-based video games to play and another Eagle model to build like the one I had in the 70s. Here’s a 4 part series on what I’ve found to date.

The first game is a simple vertical scrolling game for Windows that’s small and portable. As one of the few Space:1999 games out there, this one is definitely going in my collection. Download it here.

In Part 2, I’ll show you how to fly your own Eagle on Moonbase Alpha…and it’s a portable solution so you can fly your Eagles anytime, anywhere!