Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space

Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space is a video game in the strategy genre developed by Strategic Visions, Inc. and published by Interplay Productions, Inc. originally released in 1993. It is currently playable on DOS.

Undoubtedly one of the most original strategy games I have ever played, Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space is a computer simulation of man's greatest adventure, the race to the moon, based on designer Fritz Bronner's own obscure board game, Lift Off!

It recreates all the excitement of each space mission through digitized images of liftoffs, spacewalks, moon landings and splashdowns. As space director of NASA or its Russian counterpart, you have at your disposal all the space inventories of the US and USSR, and can plan and direct every space mission imaginable: suborbital orbital, manned and unmanned; planetary and lunar flybys; LEM tests; lunar flybys; lunar orbits and lunar landings.

You have to recruit and train 140 astronauts and cosmonauts and determine which ones have the 'raw material'. Determine the space hardware to research and develop, then schedule and launch individual space missions.

Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space offers twenty different approaches to reaching the moon. Do you follow history or blaze your own path to glory? Make Pete Conrad's dream come true with a grand Gemini lunar flyby mission in Earth orbit. Make von Braun's Nova dream come true: will America get to the Moon first, or will the Russians continue to dominate space and plant the red flag on the Moon first?

The game excellently captures the feel and complexity of 1960s space programs: will you give up crucial test missions because you're falling behind? Or will you recruit more 'green' astronauts? He configures every flight in detail, from rocket types to flight plans.

Overall, Buzz Aldrin is an amazing experience that is also educational, but be aware that it is an extremely difficult game: even with the best rockets and astronauts money can buy, you will experience frequent mission failures that seem unreasonable.

I bought this game when it came out in 1992, then the CD-ROM version in 1993 (containing 600MB of rare historical material, and well worth finding), and the game has never left my hard drive since. For strategy gamers and space enthusiasts, it is a game to be reckoned with.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.