Asteroids is an arcade space shooter released in November 1979. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The objective of the game is to destroy both, asteroids and saucers. The triangular ship can rotate left and right, fire shots straight forward, and thrust forward. Once the ship begins moving in a direction, it will continue in that direction for a time without player intervention unless the player applies thrust in a different direction. The ship eventually comes to a stop when not thrusting. The player can also send the ship into hyperspace, causing it to disappear and reappear in a random location on the screen, at the risk of self-destructing or appearing on top of an asteroid.
Asteroids opens up different styles and tactics of gameplay
The game is really repetative
In Asteroids, you avoid (or shoot) asteroids and shoot UFO’s spawning from left or right. As all arcade games from the time, there is no way to complete Asteroids. The main goal is to get a good ranking on the highscore list.
There are a few ways to do this, but still, it’s possible to do it in more than one way. On one hand you can avoid the asteroids and wait for the UFO’s to show up, for a more patient gameplay, picking higher scores on one-shots. On the other hand you can go out guns blazing and try to beat level after level.
Asteroids is An innovative game for the time being, where you’re not stuck with your spacecraft at the bottom of the screen.