Something Old: Asteroids

Something Old: Asteroids

Guess who's back?~ Back again~ and now that I've gotten that song stuck in your head forever, I have a treat for you. 

My dad is the proud owner of an Atari VCS (renamed Atari 2600) and a decent collection of original games and programing cartridges. Unfortunately, many of the cartridges have suffered damage over the years (including my dad's copy of Adventure) so I just decided to play a bunch of the first game we could get working... Asteroids. 

Asteroids is a Multi-directional shooter originally released in 1979 as an arcade cabinet by Atari, Inc. and was met with major success. In 1981, it was released for the Atari 2600 and that is the version I got to play... with very broken controllers. 

I'm sure everyone has at least some knowledge of Asteroids, but in case a refresher is needed you're basically a little ship shooting colorful asteroids and other alien ships that are also shooting you (depending on difficulty level). You get more lives at score milestones and earn points by clearing the screen. 

Controls

The controls were fairly simple, the only button shoots, you turn left and right with the joystick, pushing up propels you in the direction you're facing, and pulling down teleports you randomly around the screen. It was really easy to figure out. That said, my controller options weren't the best. One wasn't working at all, the other's joystick couldn't go up and then there was the little weird controller that wasn't actually Atari and the cord was kinda broken so it would cut out. 

I mostly used the semi-working Atari one so I just didn't fly around, and that was actually okay. I liked staying in the middle of the screen. What was annoying, however, was when whenever I randomly teleported because I bumped the down a little. That wasn't nice but other than that I really enjoyed playing. It's kinda addicting really. 

Audio / Visuals

The graphics were okay. Considering how old it is, I guess it's not bad, but I actually prefer the outline I saw in some pictures while researching over the solid color that was in the version I was playing. Not a big deal really. 

As for audio, the heartbeat I've heard a lot about was pretty awesome. I actually like it when video games use other tactics to increase tension and the synthetic ominous beat totally nailed it. The shooting sounds, however, got a bit annoying after a while. 

Overall, not bad. Could be better with a few minor tweaks, but not bad. 

Other bits

Obviously, there isn't any real story or characters to Asteroids, but that didn't mean it wasn't engaging. I really liked just mindlessly shooting asteroids as the tried to hit me and making some really awesome trick shots with timing and accidentally letting asteroids get to close. 

Changes

Honestly, I don't think Asteroids needs much changing. It's a really fun, classic game that I'm going to play more of when the new controller we ordered comes in. (I bet I could get a far better score when I'm not randomly teleporting around the screen) 

The only major I change I would say needs to happen would be adding a second of invincibility after a death. It was so frustrating when I lost my best run, not because I was making stupid mistakes, but because I lost three lives in one go because when I spawned in I was in the middle of an asteroid... twice. That wasn't fun. You gotta let people get their bearings and have a chance to maneuver out of the way of instadeaths.  

So yeah, that's Asteroids.