GOTD 5/8/2016: Astroblast (VCS)

[celerystalker]

If I try to make a correlation between Mother's Day and video games, it always comes back to the Atari 2600. My mom played it when I was a kid, and though she plays lots of modern puzzle games and learned to touch type with Typing of the Dead on Dreamcast (for real!), she still most actively plays the VCS, and even teaches her grandkids to play it when they're over. Sure, they usually play the tried and true classics, but every so often my mom comes over to my house to play different stuff. One of our favorites to play together is Astroblast.

Astroblast is, in concept, a pretty simple amalgamation of Space Invaders and Asteroids inasmuch as you control a grounded tank shooting upward at falling asteroids, space ships, and nuclear warheads. Your tank automatically fires as you concentrate on moving and dodging, and it's all pretty straight forward as you play for high score. What makes it so much fun is that Astroblast is ridiculously hard.

Asteroids move toward you at blistering speeds, as do enemy shots and nukes. You score points for everything you shoot... but you lose points for everything you don't and when you die, and if you miss a nuke, you die instantly regardless. Now, I know that the difficulty can be set to easy with the difficulty switch, but that is for weaklings who are afraid to be immediately obliterated. The frantic speed and constantly depleting score are what really make Astroblast work like it does, and we always find ourselves laughing as we pass the controller back and forth looking for bragging rights, and nothing beats pointing and laughing when a friend (or my mom) dies in less that a second.

You get ten lives, but games still trend short. It can be played with a joystick, which many manual-less players may think is the only way you can, but the game can be impossibly hard that way when a nuke drops at the other side of the screen. Champs play with the paddle controller for precision control and the chance to put up scores in the tens or hundreds of thousands. It works great in a tournament setting, as everyone laughs at each other while quietly saying "fuck that game" under their breath. The game was also a popular Intellivision hit as Astrosmash, but the Atari version is my preferred game with its paddle compatability.

Played this one? Put up a decent score?

[Steve W]

Ah, Astroblast. A true classic. Designed with the adage "easy to learn, difficult to master" in mind. I always loved the way they made it, scoring so much graduates you to a higher difficulty level, but if you aren't all that great and too much gets past you your score will go down and the game will get easier, so you always stick to your skill zone.

This was my very first M-Network game. I later got Dark Cavern, sent in my proofs of purchase for both of them, and got a free Lock N' Chase sent to me (which my brother intercepted before I got home, tore open and played, robbing me of the joy of not only getting a package in the mail but getting a video game in the mail which was so much better when you're young).

Most M-Network games are fairly different from the original Mattel Intellivision games they're based on. Like Night Stalker has so much of a different feel to it compared to Dark Cavern. It usually comes down to speed - Lock N' Chase is improved quite a bit by making it faster than the INTV original. But I have to say, I think I like Astrosmash better than Astroblast - It plays a little bit slower, the graphics and audio are better, it's easier to get into the zone with it over Astroblast. The best thing about Astroblast is you can use paddles, which will keep you alive a little bit longer.

[bb_hood]

This game has shown up in every lot of atari 2600 games i have ever bought. Or so it seems...

[celerystalker]

This game has shown up in every lot of atari 2600 games i have ever bought. Or so it seems...

Yeah, Astroblast is far, far from hard to find, and usually costs less than $2. Anywhere that sells 2600 games usually has at least five copies around. That's definitely a reason I've picked several games like this, Breakthru, Air Fortress, and more, is that I figure they're either cheap or already in a lot of collections, and lots of folks just haven't gotten around to trying them or might have memories of them.