As with a lot of these older Atari titles, I found myself wondering about the mystery of Asteroids' appeal. The game is fascinating in its simplicity. My mind wanders during play after play. How is it that I have to stop myself from reading intentionality into the random patterns and velocities of asteroids as they break? How is it that shots from large (and even worse, small) UFOs seem to be directed at the spike that represents my spaceship? How is it that, simply by calling the game "Asteroids," I read that shape as a spaceship and the mushroom-like shapes as, well, Asteroids? And why is it so difficult for me to routinely crack 10,000 points?

Played as part of Atari 50.

It's a shame that the most fun part of this--the movement--is something that you really only should do if you can't shoot something down in time. It's so slippery and difficult to control that it's better to just put all your focus into aiming at things, but when you do end up moving it makes the game so much more tense and gripping.

That's not to say that this isn't a fairly solid arcade game, and it's definitely way crazier for the time, but you really do just end up kinda sitting in one spot spamming in the vague direction of objects until something comes flying at you and you can't move out of the way in time and die. Space Invaders is definitely the best of these early space shooters, and the audio track from it being so explicitly copied here (but without the accompanying speed-up in gameplay) does kinda make me wish I was just playing that instead.

Arcade Week: Day #3

Yeah it’s good and all but it doesn’t have any adorable alien names. Clearly space invaders is superior.

Atari were quite the force in the early 80’s. So it only made sense to milk that force and create as many games as possible, but remember when Atari genuinely had ideas? This is one of them. Asteroids was a game that took people by storm with its simple yet addicting gameplay. The game was conceived by Lyle rains and programmed by Ed Logg, two people who aren’t given enough respect for their work on this brilliant game. Well let’s dive in already and see their brilliant work!

You play as a triangular ship, shooting down asteroids (the name of the game) and ufo’s once they appear. You can move left and right and turn left and right (obviously) and if you try going off the map you’ll end up on the other side. You can also hyperspace which makes you disappear and then reappear (the strategy is a tiny bit risky however). You get 3-5 lives and the maximum amount of points you can get is 99,990 before the game just decides to turn you in. They can’t stand the fact that you’re a fighter (I said I wouldn’t bring space invaders and asteroids politics into this god dammit).

Overall, asteroids is still a pretty fun game. It’s simple and has aged pretty well. The programming team clearly had a blast (literally) making this and I respect what they tried to do…but space invaders is better I’m sorry!

Simple, very fun, quite addicting, space invaders is better

One of gaming's earliest megaton hits. Even these days, it's not bad, if simple. Momentum on the meteors splitting up is actually a neat show of physics, since it's a fairly consistent defense to blast away a meteor coming at you. Wrap-around is a neat gimmick for this early into gaming, particularly since it impacts the player's shots as well as the player themselves. Hyperspace - a carry-over from Spacewar! - is rarely the best solution, so you mostly lean on it as a panic gamble. But it's cute that it exists, very much an element of early gaming that doesn't make sense to translate to modern conventions.