Asteroids

"'Wow! This Atari game has color and the arcade version doesn't! Of COURSE it has to be better!'"

To me, Asteroids represented the home consoles' first real triumph over their arcade progenitors. Sure, Space Invaders had grunt aliens of all manner of shape, and it had 112 game variations to Asteroids's mere 66. And both were better than arcade games I wouldn't pay a quarter for. I didn't have a problem with paying my mother's thirty dollars for it, though, although I resolved to play well more than a hundred fifty games to get in line with my mother's general exhortations to save money(games were a quarter, of course, but Tin Pan Alley always gave you a bonus token for your dollar) despite her seeming hypocrisy in this specific instance. I lost count in the thirties, not including games I reset quickly if I lost my first man under 1000 points. I don't think I quite made it, but I enjoyed trying.

In the original version, overrun by white vector lines, you were a ship thrusting around a play field shooting large asteroids that broke into two medium sized ones, each of which broke into two small ones on being shot. What annoyed me about the arcade version was how the asteroids went flying off in all sorts of crazy untrackable directions. The ones at sharp diagonals from each other would always befuddle me, especially with the controls the way they were--the game didn't even have a joystick(not that it deserved something way cool like a trak-ball.) But the Atari was so organized. Pairs of medium sized asteroids stuck together, and medium ones only broke down into one small one when shot. It was easy to use the joystick; forward thrusted your ship in the direction it faced, and left/right rotated it. Your ship's shots didn't go off-screen as easily, but I never hit any of those trick shots anyway. The duo-tone notes and the explosions for your ship and the asteroids were about the same, too, another relative victory for the Atari.

But the most captivating part was the color. It was random, and as more asteroids piled on the screen at later levels, I could quickly rectify any color schemes I didn't like. The asteroids often reminded me of the sugary cereal my mother never let me have with their indeterminate shape, or perhaps even Everlasting Gobstoppers, as they changed colors when hit.

And yet more useful than captivating was the combination of available useful options. While Space Invaders had a team mode(like I really WANTED to cooperate with my older sister,) Asteroids had cool stuff you'd only see in the Asteroids Deluxe arcade game. For starters, there was a game(''kids mode) that made me feel I wasn't in the babies' league any more, but you could also choose asteroid speed, the points between extra men(5K, 10K, 20, or never) or what happened when you pushed down(flip your ship, shields for two seconds--after which your ship explodes if you forget to let go, and the standard hyperspace from the arcade game) with all sorts of combinations. There was also a difficulty switch I soon flipped when I realized I could hang with the UFO's it released--a big blue one appears at first, then a small yellow one. It went against my belief system at first that the smaller one was tougher, but once I was able to thrash it for this or laugh at either for running straight into an asteroid, I didn't mind how I got no points for this. And although I figured I was good enough to take on the tough levels(no special ability, no extra men) it just seemed to me that that restricted my Atari's ability to perform special tasks, and I didn't want to get in the way of technology or anything.

I remember reading with reverence about a person who was so good at Asteroids, he was able to take a bathroom break and waste twenty-four ships, coming back with a healthy supply remaining. I vowed to see how well I could do, and although I never piled up enough ships to survive a meat loaf dinner, I did manage to delay it and exasperate my mother a little. Those were heady times, with my Speak N Spell being obsolete(no fun any more even if I made it say Q or X or Z a bunch,) and Asteroids was an example of more fun in simple repetition.

Like all old games without a stirring premise, Asteroids has faded a bit with age--with the asteroids as orderly as they are when shot, it feels more like a clay pigeon shoot and test of timing than anything resembling the middling strategy I prefer. But it left some incredible memories for me and was a colorful adaptation of a game I never liked in the arcades. It even had more options. And its limitations(asteroids not bouncing all over the place, UFO's predictable) were perfect for a kid like me.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/31/02, Updated 10/31/02