OK,
anyone who can even hold a joystick should know certain gaming lingo,
and also names of specific games as soon as they are mentioned.
Phrases such as 1up, powerup, boss, come to mind for the fist part,
and milestones such as Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Asteroids
are essential to video game history. If you don't recognize these
favorites (and possibly shed a small tear reminiscing) you don't
belong on this web page, or even on this planet. Blasteroids is
basically Asteroids with a "BL". Just kidding, the differences go
beyond that.
The
concept of Asteroids is a small ship thrown in the center of a spaceload
of huge rocks, with the objective of blowing them to kingdom come.
The directional pad can control the spaceship on a 360 degree plane.
Forward motion is achieved by activating the thruster, which only
pushes you in the direction you are facing. Rather than push "left"
to move left, you have to turn the ship and thurst, and hope you
don't overshoot. Inertia counts.
While
the original Asteroids is very simplistic, yet much fun to play,
Blasteroids adds just enough new elements to make this one a keeper.
Keeping the same basic controls, you now have the option of morphing
into three different ships: the main ship, heavy on firepower, a
quick little guy that zips around, and a huge but hard to control
armored ship. You have the freedom to morph whenever your little
heart desires, but most of your time will be spent on the standard
ship. The problem comes in the form of energy, which is lost every
time you shoot or thrust. Lose all of this, and score one for the
rocks.
You
are given a map which shows what kinds of enemies and how much extra
energy are in each sector. There is a slight strategy element here,
forcing you to make the decision on how to tackle the sectors and
conserve energy. There are several different enemies, each with
different characteristics. The turtles, for example, try to nab
all you powerups and enegry on the screen. In order to assist you,
destroying baddies leaves such helpful items as: shields, enegry
tanks, an energy magnet (to pull in crystals), faster engines, twin
blasters, and even a super bomb. Clear out one whole sector and
get ready to face: Mukor!
Mukor
must be the half brother of Sinistar or something, the two are very
similar. Both have delusions of grandeur, thinking they "own the
galaxy". Both shout insults at the player (Puny Earth scum is weak!)
while trying to eat them. Mukor is the re-occuring boss in this
game, becoming a little harder each time by adding more enemy tubes
to be blown off.
Blasteroids
is a fun little ditty to play, especially if you liked the original.
There is much repetition, but the game adds little new features
or enemies as the difficulty increases to keep you going. Music
is average, graphics are colorful, but the overall pull of Blasteroids
is the fun. Just goes to show that keeping it simple with good play
control still works.
