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| Credits | |||||||||||
| Released: | 1989 (37 years ago) | ||||||||||
| Publisher: | Image Works | ||||||||||
| Re-releaser: | Kixx | ||||||||||
| Copyright: | Atari Games Tengen |
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| Developer: | Teque Software | ||||||||||
| Coder: | B. Pollock | ||||||||||
| Graphics: | Dave Colledge | ||||||||||
| Musician: | Ben Daglish | ||||||||||
| Box Art: | Marc William Ericksen (US release) Paul Kidby (European release) |
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| Information | |||||||||||
| Main Control: | Joystick (Port 2) | ||||||||||
| Players: | 1 or 2, Simultaneous (Co-op) | ||||||||||
| Language: | English | ||||||||||
| Retail Price: | Tape – £9.99 GBP Disk – £14.99 GBP | ||||||||||
| Tape Loader | |||||||||||
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| Categorization | |||||||||||
| Genre: | Shoot'em Up, Miscellaneous | ||||||||||
| Tags: | ActionCoin-opLicensedSci-fi/futuristicShooterTop-down | ||||||||||
| Tie-In Licenses | |||||||||||
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| Inspiration | |||||||||||
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| Magazine Reviews | |||||||||||
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| YouTube Links | |||||||||||
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Game ID: 296 · Viewed 18,881 times.
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Read review by Northlander
Graphics: 6 ‧
Music: 3 ‧
Playability: 5 ‧
Overall: 5
Alien Syndrome1988, ACE |
Mega-Apocalypse1987, Martech |
Pang1991, Ocean |
Wizard of Wor1983, Commodore |
West Bank1987, Gremlin Graphics |
It replicates the arcade gameplay, but the movement of the asteroids and your ship feels slippery.
Everything about the gameplay can be said the same for all the computer conversions of this game is that they get boring after a couple of minutes, but they all have interesting power-ups and retain the feel of the arcade original.
The asteroids and ships are too big for the play area, so hitting the asteroids is near unavoidable. Your ship can change shape, but it either becomes too sluggish to avoid getting hit, or too vulnerable to withstand many a cheap shot the game throws at you. Mastering when to use these transformations is key to winning however. On top of that, your energy drains, so you can't even try to play it safe by taking your time. You have to rush through each stage.
When an arcade game feels unfair and out to drain your money (even if the difficulty is just brutal), you just give up. In the C64's case, there's not really much to play for once you defeat Mukor for the first time - which won't take long. Atari got it just right with the original Asteroids and it's deluxe variant, as playing it requires skill and feels fair. Blasteroids might actually be fair, but never feels like it is and is worse for it.
Worth the few I paid for it on the Kixx label I suppose and its worth a load on an emulator these days for a quick blast.
Just don't expect to spend much time with it.