Asteroids |
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Monday November 23, 1998 |
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Asteroids |
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Monday November 23, 1998 |
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Retro-gamers get another classic retrofitted for the 90s. |
| Asteroids
first appeared in the late 70's and was a big hit among
gamers. Back in the day when all arcade games cost only a
quarter to play and some arcades wouldn't let you inside
if you were under the age of eighteen, the games were
much simpler. Purer. There weren't any pop music
soundtracks to games; no political statements were
included. Shoot this, eat that or fly there were about as
complicated as your missions got. Many veteran gamers today miss those old games, or at least they think they do, and savvy marketing types have cashed in on this by re-releasing classics with up to date graphics. Centipede, Tempest and Robotron:2084 have all received facelifts and Asteroids is the latest to go under the knife. The game is pretty straightforward. You fly around the screen in a spaceship shooting at asteroids. When you hit one of these rocks, it breaks up into smaller, faster moving chunks. You continue to pound these boulders into smaller and smaller pieces until they disappear. If any of the chunks hits your spaceship, you die. UFOs randomly appear to take potshots at you and you have to disintegrate them as well. The world of this game is limited to one screen, so if a rock flies off the left side of the screen, it'll reappear on the right side of the screen heading in the same direction and with the same momentum. Once you've got the basics of flying around and shooting figured out, you've pretty much mastered the game, except that as you get to higher and higher levels, the asteroids start moving faster and there's more of them. This updated version of Asteroids features the exact same game mechanics, but everything looks a lot better. Whereas the original had plain black and white vector graphics,
This'd make nice wallpaper. |
 The owner of this black hole had too much chili for dinner. this version is full color, with beautiful explosions and transparency effects.This isn't merely a carbon copy, though, as there have been some new elements added to the game. You can get power ups now . These give your little ship massive boosts of firepower, although you can only use them a few times. You can now lay mines as well, but I've found this counterproductive as I always end up flying into them myself. There are two new kinds of asteroids now: Indestructible ones which have to be evaded repeatedly until you complete the level and crystal asteroids which will regenerate over time. The largest alteration of the original gameplay is the addition of black holes. These appear in later levels and sit in the middle of the screen spitting out arcs of electricity. They have massive gravitational fields and constantly pull your ship towards the center. If your ship stays in the middle of a black hole for too long, it'll be crushed, so you now have to spend more time near the edges of the screen. As veteran Asteroids players can attest, the edges of the screen are precisely where you don't want to be. That's because that's where new asteroids will first appear and the closer you are to them, the less time you have to react. Despite all the new extras, this is still basically the same old game and if you didn't like it twenty years ago, you still won't like it. For younger folk who've never seen or heard of this before, you might get tired of this game fairly quickly. It's pretty repetitive. I'd recommend Asteroids for older nostalgic players, pining for the games of their youth. Everyone else: go get Half-Life. |
Company: Category: NOTES: Interest: 70% TOTAL : 58% Requirements: Playstation
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