Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space

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 mini shuttles). 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 original version of the game featured crude 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.