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Asteroids (Arcade) Status: Stopped playing - Something better came along I started playing this game on Wednesday 22 September, 2004 // I stopped playing this game on: Tuesday 2 November, 2004
Current opinion of this game
Another classic worth analyzing...though it really isn't that good.
November 1, 2004 06:05:31 PM
Comparing Asteroids with Robotron resulted in bad news for Asteroids. First of all, Asteroids has a dominant strategy in that you can "lurk" in a corner (with only one asteroid left) and take out the flying saucers. Secondly, the gameplay isn't very varied. In Robotron you have different types of enemies (and mixes of these) and the pace is a lot more frantic and adrenalinic. Asteroids is almost "ho-hum" after that! It may be a classic, and it deserves its place in history....but its gameplay doesn't really measure up to close scrutiny.
September 22, 2004 11:34:39 AM
I've now started playing Asteroids for the same reasons I was playing Robotron. It is interesing to play these games and compare them from a game design point of view. In particular I am amazed by how little design decision have important ramifications (or implications) on the playability, tension, strategies, etc. For example, in Asteroids the environment is 2D and it wraps. In other words if you get to the top of the screen and keep going up, you come out at the bottom. In Robotron the environment is a rectangle. When you add in all the other stuff in each game you get to the fact that in Robotron it is safer to stick to walls and corners while in Asteroids it is safer in the middle. The reason why isn't apparently obvious because in both games you are facing enemies that come at you from all sides. In Robotron it helps to have two walls behind you since no one can come at you from those directions. In Asteroids it is harder to watch the corners behind you since things will be warping in anyways and from other places!

Asteroids (Arcade)