So, you want to be an ARCADE champion?

Aztarac is next - a lovely looking vector game from 1983. Was *really* looking forward to it let me tell you, until……This happened

What do I mean “and then this happend”?

Well, what you see there is a picture of the arcade machine controls and yes, that’s right it has an analogue stick AND a bloody dial!

Try as I might i couldn’t get any sort of configuration working in MAME that allowed me to play the game properly - nearest I got was the stick on the arrow keys and the dial on the mouse but it was just so so clumsy.

So alas my shiney friend I have to skip you - and with that we LEAP into the “B’s”!

Hold me.

Playing rules:

Difficulty: Factory default. Start: 3 Misses per game. Bonus: Extended play at 450 points. Extended Play: Enabled

Dip-Switch: 1-3=ON; 4=OFF; 5-6=Not Used; 7=ON; 8=OFF.

Current Record holders

1st: 2,453 - David Nelson - 2004
2nd: 1,334 - Jason Cram - 2004
3rd: 597 - Shawn Cram - 2004


1978 - When I were a lad, all this were fields - and by ‘eck it were grand. Lucky then that I was way too young to go anywhere near an arcade, because little did I know Atari had created the absolute terror that is “Avalance”.

Alright, alright - I can hear you from here; Absolute terror? Just look at that screenshot, it looks about as scary as a care bear in a trance. Well don’t you be fooled young traveller - this is by far the most stressful game I have played in years and if it doesn’t scare the bejesus out of you then you truly are dead inside - or at the very least you don’t have the sound turned up. We are still only in the “A’s” yet we’ve already had some bloody scary sound effects thrown at us along the way; well they are *nothing* compared to this game, believe me.

Anyway enough of that for now, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts…aaaahhhhhh that’s better, thank you Felicity Kendall you can go now.

Where was I? Ah yes - 1978 (thirty years ago!).

Video games were still very much in their infancy all that time ago; one of the first recognised video arcade games, Space War, had only been out a year and Space Invaders was yet to arrive (albeit only by a matter of months), so realistically we should expect this early Atari effort to be quite simple. Well, simple we certainly get as you can see by the screenshot - in fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar looking game running on an oscilloscope. What’s an oscilloscope I hear you ask? Well, find yourself a scientist and ask him. Can’t find one? Ok, at the very least find a man with a beard, he’s sure to be able to tell you.

We also get simple with the controls; In fact if I didn’t know better (and I don’t) I would imagine quite a few PONG and Breakout spinners found their way back into the limelight with this game, as that’s all you get - no buttons, no joysticks, just a spinner. The control method isn’t the only familiar aspect either, the trusty pong bat is back, fresh from his last adventure “breaking out” and this time he’s brought some friends with him, six of the buggers altogether. What adventure could possibly require SIX pong bats for goodness sakes? Surely with that number you can take over the world! 

Well, you see there is a major problem in pong-bat town (which is of course where they live in case you were wondering). Previously all the pong bats had to worry about was losing their precious ball, be it playing a nice game of tennis or fannying about vandalising walls. Well fuck your ball son, we are talking about a mother freakin’ AVALANCHE here. Why is it down to you bats to save the town? Well funny you should ask actually - y’see this is no ordinary avalanche with snow and shit, this is an avalanche of BALLS. Yeah that’s right, while we’ve been grafting dahn t’ pit doing proper jobs, sticking food on your table every night, you’ve been prancing about playing ball games all day long. Well now the tables are turned pal, time for you to earn your keep. Yeah ok, I know the avalanche won’t really effect us as we are underground in the pit as previously explained, but let’s not ruin the little story eh? If you want to question anything why not question who the hell “we” are, if not bats, and why are we looking after bats? Do bats even eat? Why are non bats living in pong-bat town at all as a matter of fact? Look, no time for that - avalanche on it’s way remember, loads of rocks about to plummet on our heads? There we go…ok, we better work out what we’re supposed to do i suppose.

The game is extremely simple. Using the spinner (or the mouse under MAME) you control all 6 bats at once, all tied together, and are able to go left and right as much as you like ( that’s all mind, don’t be getting greedy). The idea of the game is to simply prevent the “rocks” from reaching the bottom of the screen, which sounds easy enough - and it is. All of the rocks are visible from the off and they slowly start falling off one by one. Once you catch a rock it doesn’t bounce about or anything funky like that, it just disappears with a “beep”, surrendering itself to your mighty bat. That’s it! Easy - let’s get cracking!

First of all though let’s take a peek at the scores. As ever it’s hard to tell what’s a good score at the moment but it’s quite clear that some buggers suddenly found one of these rare machines in 2004 and proceeded to slap it about a bit as all three records are from the same time. A nice spread of scores as well so looks like we could be in with a chance.

Righto then, I’m ready to save batsville or whatever the place is called so off we go. No music, no fanfare nothing - straight away the rocks start to fall, really rather slowly. With a satisfying beep I hoover all of them up; occasionally I miss one with the top bat, but I have 5 others lined up that more than happily make up for it. Piece of piss this. Oddly though I notice a soft slow rumbling sound in the background which I assume is the best that they can come up with in the way of atmospheric sound effects - it does sound a bit like an avalanche I have to admit…..ahhhh how sweet - nice touch Atari.

It’s this “sweet” sound that for the past week has caused me to wake up every night with the sweats on something rotten.

You see, of course the game speeds up as you go - surprisingly viciously in fact, but that isn’t the main concern. The slow rumbling sound effect ramps up, not just in volume, but in intensity as well. Within a single minute the sound that this fucking game makes is entirely terrifying. It’s running on 30 year old hardware for christ’s sake yet it somehow has the technology to get INSIDE your head. Like when you watch a Cronenberg film you find yourself hitting your own head with a shoe, pleading desperately with yourself WHY you are putting yourself through this horror? I cannot believe that this machine ever lived in an arcade,  a lovely family place, uttering such evil, surely not. Maybe it sat in its own sound proof box, like an old fashioned circus freak show - that I can believe. “Come and witness the scariest fucking thing ever, roll up roll up!”.

As you may have gathered the sound is pretty intense.

The bats however, decide that they aren’t happy playing second fiddle to the sound, oh no. “Why not get intense too?” they think. “I know, what we’ll do is start shrinking in width, eventually doing legs, one by one until there is only a single skinny bat left. Yeah that’ll do it”.

“Hang on though you slags”, think the rocks. “Why should we miss out?. What *we’ll* do is start falling faster and faster leaving the smallest of the small rocks till last. That oughta do it, yeah let’s do that.

All of this happens at once in the space of about 45 seconds. ALL AT ONCE.

I’m an absolute jibbering wreck by the time my first go is over, my three lives were all a blur (although I did notice that on losing a life the sound resets giving you a few seconds of peace before it revs up again). What was my score? Do you get a score? What is my name? hang on, what does that say up there?

Score: 256

Fuck. My. Old. Boots.

That is one crazy game. It takes literally 20 seconds to start going mental and then it’s just a case of hanging on in there. I can’t see *how* anyone scores highly on this game as by the time you are a minute in the rocks are tiny and the bats almost as small. 256? I’ll take that and leave now if that’s ok? No? bugger.

If only to avoid going straight back in for another game I have a look around the screen. That’s interesting - “Extend play for 450 points” - wonder what that means? Also I see that you can play two player, one after the other though rather than together, which is a shame. Mind you, at least if you play two player you have someone to hug the tears away once it’s all over.

Ok, I’m ready let’s go.

Score: 378

An absolute blur. I managed to last about 15 seconds longer this time, mainly due to turning the volume down slightly and not messing my pants to distraction. It really is rock hard though, once the rocks speed up and the bats start disappearing you really are in trouble, proper proper trouble.

Ok, let’s go again (volume down a bit more)

Score: 364

Ok, again

Score: 356

Shit. Getting nowhere, let’s get the volume back up again.

Score: 228

Fuck that, back down again

Score: 397

Ok, focus now - focus. FOCUS!!!!

Score: 488

YES! I managed to reach the extend play, which surprisingly works just like a pinball machine. Once you reach 450 points, the screen flashes and you get a free game. The current game plays on though so don’t celebrate too hard if you get there, especially as the 3rd place score isn’t that far past it.

The good thing with this game is that it is over really quickly. Once you’re over the shock of it all (although the sound NEVER goes away) you can whip through games of this without even pausing for breath.

So I do, for another 10 goes - never getting to the extend score again. Shit.

So how does someone get over a thousand? I for one want to know what happens if you manage to clear the screen (i.e all rocks have fallen). For my highest score of 488 there could only have been a dozen or so rocks left to fall, i assume it resets but I don’t want to assume, I want to know!

It takes me a while to notice the scoring as well. Score wise the rocks start off at 1 point each, which I assumed would be the same all the way through, 450 points = 450 rocks etc… But It’s not. As the rocks get smaller they go up in value - when you reach 450 points or so the rocks are worth 5 points each, which makes my score of 488 all the more painful as 597 and third place actually isn’t that far away.

How do people get the high scores though? I just can’t see how you can manage the rocks once you are a single tiny bat and they are thundering down at you, the size of a pea? There must be a technique, there just must be.

And then it struck me - what about if you swaz the bats left and right as fast as you can, effectively making an impenetrable wall in the process? GENIUS! Worth a stab and it certainly looks the part as the bats whizz side to side with impossible speed, this is going to work!

Score: 122

No it isn’t. Fucking stupid idea - idiot.

Oh well, back to the old way

volume UP…

ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Playing rules:

Difficulty: Factory default. Start: 3 lives. Bonus: 1 life at 10,000 points.
Current Record holders

1st: 56,330 - Fred Pastore - 2006
2nd: 41,680 - Donald Hayes - 2006
3rd: 39,880 - Brian Miller - 1983


Right that’s it SEGA, to bed with you without any tea - I’ve told you before about this astro obsession and now it’s gone TOO far. Oh wait, what? Stern? oh. Ok SEGA, you were lucky this time.

Ahem.

So 1980 and we have another Astro game to play, this time “Astro Invader”. Now, this game is a funny bugger and no mistake - I don’t think I have ever seen a game that offers so much originiality and yet copies so blatantly all at the same time. You see, the “Invader” in the title isn’t an accident, oh no. We’re back in the wonderful days of “everything goes” game development, whenever a game is released that proves to be successful it’s a mass bundle for every other bugger to try and cash in and make a copy.

Stern HQ:
“Space Invaders selling like hot cakes? We need to make an Invader game and quick!”
“Let’s call it “Space Invaders”
“Don’t be stupid. Firstly we can’t completely copy the name, secondly its 1980, every other fucker is making a game with astro in the title we need us some of that”
“Deal! We’re going to be bloody loaded, I’m off to buy a yacht.”

Funny thing is, as derivative as the naming goes, it seems that nobody told the game’s programmers as this game is *nothing* like space invaders when you actually play it. Well I say that, taking a look at the MAME roms you find that the game uses the same sound effects as Space Invaders. I don’t mean similiar ones, it actually uses the *exact* same files. Madness I tells you. Also you do control a space ship shooting invaders, but apart from all those things it’s nowt like it honest. Ok I can see you don’t believe me; that’s fine, at first I was just like you - but mark my words I shall prevail. 

First though, the scores. Well, score wise we don’t have much to write home about; only the three scores listed with the top two being recent funspot efforts (interestingly Mr Pastore also holds the record for the last game Astro Fighter) and the bottom score being the original record from back in the day. However, again I get a sinking feeling as my chances are knocked into a cocked hat before we start as all three of those scores look a bit meaty for my liking, especially when you consider how points are typically hard to come by from this era of gaming.

No point crying about it though, so let’s get on with it - here comes another bloody version of space Invaders and all that.

Pretty much immediately the game throws my cruel initial dismissal right back in my face. As if by way of punishment, the game goes out of it’s way to throw a whole array of foreign game ideas at you from the off - this would be jarring for even the most open minded player, but as someone who clearly expected a simple shooter it’s a right old carry on. First thing that strikes you is the enemy formation. If you thought Space Invaders or even Galaxian were a bit “rigid” in their enemy formations, you ain’t seen nothing yet. As the game starts a massive blue mothership rolls onto the screen and before you can say “ah, look at that they’ve even written STERN on the ship, bless ‘em” it starts spitting out Invaders left right and centre.

Invaders! Invading our very own earth! Panic! Batten the hatches! PANIC!!!……….right?

Well no actually. These are truly the most polite invaders you ever will see. There is no shooting, no swooping, no flying about giving it all the big - no, slowly the invaders drop down individually and in order into the tube like rack above you where they proceed to have a bit of a sit down and possibly even a nice cup of Earl Grey tea. How very civil. This of course leaves me rather confused, so after what felt like cruelly shooting the first few I just sat there watching them fill the tubes. Now, the invaders must be English as when the first row is full up they simply start up small little queues behind them (us English love a good queue you see). Still no aggression at all and it all becomes rather surreal. I thought these guys were supposed to be invading for goodness sake and unless they consider queueing up in front of us a an act of downright hostility, they aren’t really doing a great job.

Hold on though, maybe that’s exactly what they *want* us to think, the clever buggers -  soon they will all break free of their queueing tubes and before we know it swarms will be upon us as we are well and truly invaded. I’ve got your number pal and I’ll be ready. But what’s this? Almost apologetically a small pink flying saucer flies down the opposite side of the screen making a silly shrill noise as it goes. At last an attack! Ok it’s absolutely no threat as I’m nowhere near it, but still it’s a start. Choosing to ignore the fact that after the game made all that effort with the mothership, this pink fucker appeared out of bloody nowhere, I watch as the ship slowly moves down the screen on its wasted and wildly inaccurate attack. 

And then I die.

What? Hang on, WHAT? As the ship reached the bottom of the screen, rather than disappear and regroup for the next attack it crashes into the line behind me, creating what I assume is a massive aftershock which kills me stone dead even though I am nowhere near the bloody thing. What makes it worse is that not only do you die but the whole screen flashes red, whilst all the time letting out a shrill noise that I’m man enough to tell you made me shit my very pants. Not cricket, AT ALL.

It’s fair to say that the death display won’t be appearing in anyone’s “scariest moments in gaming” lists, but as with all good horror it was the absolute contrast that scared me titless. Best comparison I can make are those extremely annoying animations that went round the internet a few years ago - “look really closely at this picture to see if you can find the kitten or whatever…. closer…. closer….. GRAAAAARGHHHHHHH Big scary screaming face fills the screen!” (ok it doesn’t work so well in text form I admit but you know the ones I mean). All in all most unexpected.

And it only gets worse. Resuming my next life and the invaders that were already queued up are still there and the mothership continues on it’s merry way shitting new invaders out willy nilly. Still nothing happening with the invaders, but I’m on the watchout for those pink fuckers that’s for sure. Not a moment too soon another pink ship starts coming down the screen, this time on the far left - I’m after you ya shit and off I go to shoot him before he makes me change my pants again.

And then the whole world goes to bits.

It just so happens that while the second pink ship starts it’s decent, the queueing invaders on the left hand set of tubes decide that enough is enough and nigh on simultaneously all five of the lowest fuckers stream town towards me. All too much for me this and besides I am already halfway on my way to stop the pink doombringer so I’m right in the middle of it all. BOOM. Last life is more of the same as if you remember the invaders don’t reset so within seconds I’m blanketed by another assault and it’s game over.

Score: 560

Ok, time to work out what the bloody hell is going on - and soon enough I begin to get an idea of how the game works. While it is true that the invaders sit there all nicely queued up, there is only a very finite queue length (of five) before the first in line gets pushed out and makes a bid towards the bottom of the screen. Thankfully though it turns out that it is nowhere near as bad as I feared as if you let one of these invaders reach the bottom of the screen you don’t die regardless of where you are - no, you only get killed if you are within a rather small, yet hard to define “splash zone” around each one at the time of impact. The pink ships that appear every now and then are still instant death if they reach the bottom so the challenge seems to be thus: Keep the invaders trimmed down and make sure you don’t miss any pink buggers. Sounds easy, let’s crack on.

Second go and it’s a completely different story. As each invader calmly slots in to its little tube I follow soon after and shoot the fucker. Granted, even though I know the horrors to come they do look kind of serene and calm, but I know now that they should be afforded no mercy at all costs. The tactic seems to work as well and by the time the first pink ship appears most of the tubes are still empty - nice and easy, what a contrast! Even though I miss a few it really is quite organised even now, as the invaders continue to stream forward in a nice orderly manner - from left to right and then back again, meaning I can simply follow the line picking them off as they drop. The only time this rhythm is broken is when a pink ship appears, usually on the opposite side of the screen and I have to break off from the invaders and stop him getting to the bottom. A few invaders get loose but nothing I can’t keep away from and it’s a whole new ball game.

It’s only now that I have wrestled some sort of control back from the game that I notice that the mothership has a counter on it signifying how many invaders are left until it is empty. I can’t remember exactly but i’m sure it started off on about 200 or so, but it isn’t long before it gets to 0. i wonder what happens now? Maybe it’s the next level? is it balls. Once the mothership is skint the whole screen freezes, bullets in mid-air the lot, while we watch the empty ship slowly trundle off the screen only to be replaced with a new full up one, which we now watch come back to the middle, still frozen like a tit in a trance. Once it’s slow journey ends the game resumes rather abruptly without warning - so much so that I actually lose a life before I get the chance to move as I was in the middle of dodging an invader at the time, the slags. Yeah, don’t mind us Mr Important Mothership, you pop off for a refill, we’ll wait. Wanker.

Anyway, all of my cockiness soon disappears with this new ship as they obviously cotton on to the major flaw in their battle plan. Rather than fill the tubes in order making it easy for the dirty earthship to follow us about, why don’t we fill up randomly? That’ll learn ‘em - and learn me it certainly does as I am very soon overwhelmed.

Score: 2,180

A better score but still comically far off even last place in the records. For some reason I’m really struggling with this game, it is just so easy to get overwhelmed as the filling of the invader tubes is rather swift and completely relentless. I have a few other goes but they are pretty much the same - as soon as the second mothership load appears and they start coming randomly I’m simply buggered. Scratch this down as “one of those games” that I just can’t get on with then? Maybe.

But wait, a few further goes and I spot a pattern. From the second mothership onwards the invaders are not actually random - they purposely filter to which ever side of the screen you are on at the time. This may not seem like much of a revelation but believe me it is. While before I always found myself overwhelmed by falling ships, blocking my route to the all important pink ships more often than not, now I have an element of control meaning I can actually start to find safe routes when I need them. Pink ship appearing on the right hand side of the screen? No problem - I simply move left of centre and the invaders start pouring that way leaving a free route for me to rush over to the right, slap pinkie and get back to the middle again (which invariably seems to be the safest place to hang around most of the time). It starts to make sense!

This changes the game as I now get past the second load and indeed the third. The method stays the same as well, but the speed increases each time. At last I have a method for playing the game that sort of works and my third score is much better.

Score: 7,610

Still nowhere near the records but considering how it was looking at one stage it’s a vast improvement that’s for sure. Still, I don’t think this game is for me. Even though at first you fall into the trap of thinking the strict formation and tube like mechanic is an advantage, each and every game soon descends into a situation where all queues are full and every single invader unloaded is one that will stream down the screen at you. It really is quite a job keeping the fuckers weeded out and one that I think causes some inner child to panic all too often where a calm methodical head is needed.

So Astro Invaders, I doff my cap to you sir! In an era where all shooting games were starting to get a bit samey you dared to do something a little bit different. Ok, so the name is a cop-out (although interestingly it is called Kamikaze in some places which makes a lot of sense game wise, if not politically across the eastern world) but the game truly is unique. I don’t want to say I told you so at the beginning of this post, so I won’t.

No, I won’t - you trusted me anyway right?

Wow, that didn’t go well did it? Update every week he says, now it’s been over a month.

yeah I know.

Few things - firstly I’ve been stupidly busy the past month including a few unexpected overseas trips so time has been of the essence. That isn’t really the full reason though if i’m honest - the main reason is that I’ve been struggling a wee bit with my writing for a while. Work has been pretty time consuming and I have been finding writing anything decent trickier than usual (what’s that at the back? nothing new there then? security!).

And y’know I really want this blog to be a good read, so i’m reluctant to churn out anything half heartedly even if it means missing my new update schedule and all that.

Anyway, that’s the reasons - things are gearing up in quite an exciting way in the next few weeks, culminating in another trip to FUNSPOT at the end of May. Loads of stuff lined up for that and this blog, so cheers for sticking by even though the update schedule has been rhubarb and I hope to get things back before you know it. I’ve had a half written entry staring me in the chops for the past 3 weeks as well so I’ll be tackling that in a bit also. Shine on you crazy diamonds!

Playing rules:

Difficulty: Easy. Start: 3 lives. Bonus: 1 life at 5,000 points.
Dip-switch: 1-7=ON; 8=ON/OFF [Stand up/Cocktail]

Current Record holders

1st: 26,670 - Fred Pastore - 2006
…
5th: 18,280 - Robby Jensen - 1983
…
11th: 2,210 - Justine Barker - 2005


Ah, here we go - a nice quirky early 80s shooter from good old trusty SEGA. “Astro Fighter”? Sounds like a cracking title as well, let’s get stuck in.

Hang on, what?

Man alive. Someone in SEGA obviously had the horn for astros, “Astro Blaster” and now “Astro Fighter” both within a few years of each other…….actually let me look something up.

Would you adam it?! It even carried on past the 80’s, bloody Astro Boy - bastard son of Astro Fighter and Astro Blaster no doubt. SEGA and astro, just get a room will you? While we’re on the subject, beginning the names of your games with “A” and hence being near the beginning of the virtual school register will get you nowhere either son (erm, apart from on this blog earlier…ahem), you took the piss with 005 which isn’t even a proper bloody name and now you’re overloading the A’s, shame on you SEGA, shame on you.

Anyway, I digress as usual - time to try and get beyond the name and actually give the game a chance, all’s fair in love and Astro war after all.

Astro Fighter is a curious beast, especially when compared to it’s namesake “Astro Blaster”; the games really are worlds apart. On one hand you have the 1980’s Astro Fighter which looks like it is running on a Spectrum (it even has the colour clash for goodness sakes) and on the other, just one year later, you have 1981’s Astro Blaster that looks like the FUTURE by comparison. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure technology improved in the year 1980 but with this it’s all a bit much. To compound matters a similar gulf can be found with regards to how the games play, but we’ll come onto that a bit later.

So, as you may remember (it was only last week after all) I quite liked the other Astro game - what chance does this relic stand when put in the spotlight? Well first let’s get the science bit out of the way.

First thing that demanded research was the whole “SEGA / Gremlin / Data East” thing, where do Data East come into it? Unusually the ever trusty klov.com comes up a little short with no explanation so it’s off to the less reliable wikipedia for our answer. This is actually Data East’s first game and apparently came about as a collaboration with the lovely chaps at SEGA. One for the trivia fans only that I suppose but at least it does clear up why the game a year later is so radically different sans Data East. On the same Wiki page it also cites the record score, correctly attributing it to young Fred Pastore but otherwise getting the score wrong (only by a few hundred admittedly) and also claiming that his score is the “maximum possible” score. This is by no means unusual, loads of games plateau out at a maximum score, but checking on twingalaxies tells me that it’s all a load of bollocks. Nearly a nice start there then, never a good sign when you find out early doors that the record can only be equalled (don’t you just love my positive attitude regarding the scores before I actually play the game?).

Seeing as we’re talking about the scores, you’ll notice a few interesting things about the ones for this game. Firstly the bottom end score looks nice and small so getting on the board *should* be achievable, which is nice. Also however, you will see that the top score is a recent one, 2006 in fact. This is rather rare for an obscure game and for comparison you’ll see that I have included the “original” top score from the 80s which just happens to be good enough for 5th. A game that’s still being played then eh? Now that is unusual. 

Unusual, how we love unusual. Shame then as once again I regret to inform you all that this game is by no means unusual gameplay wise, in fact it’s pretty bloody standard fare by the looks of it. You control the ship at the bottom of the screen as ever and you’re job as Mr Astro Fighter is to fight the nasty villains that come down the screen towards you. You shoot them, they try and shoot at you, they get faster as their numbers are thinned out until they all die or you do, blah blah blah. Add the fact that it looks like it’s running on a scientific calculator and we don’t have a great time on our hands. SEGA, SEGA, SEGA, what were you thinking? These Data East monkeys are obviously dragging you down! Still, let’s temper our disappointment and give the game a chance, people are still playing it after all so it must be worth a go right? Like I have a choice anyway…..

Loading the spectrum MAME emulator up greets me with a slowly populating menu style score table - let’s see what sort of score this record really is. Ah, so it’s one of them is it? Score ranges from 20 points all the way to a massive 60 points per enemy hit - ballbags. What’s this though? There seems to be a big guardian fella that’s worth 300 - now we’re talking, how rather exciting! Next up is a title screen filled with what appear to be several large Japanese characters. After quickly checking that I am using the correct english rom (I am) I set about keenly trying to see if I can translate any of them (I’m currently learning Japanese see). This is hindered in two ways - firstly it would appear to be written in an alphabet I haven’t been taught yet (arse) and secondly this little ship appears at the bottom of the screen and starts shooting the letters one by one. Oy, you little shit, I’m trying to read that! By the time he’s shot them all I’ve managed to recognise the number “10″ in there and that’s it. Looks like it will remain a mystery then - I don’t know, you *try* and broaden your horizons a little bit, get in a bit of culture and what happens? A space ship comes along and fucks it all up. How often have we all heard that classic story eh? If I had a pound for every time etc…

Perhaps because of this, when I start the game I feel little connection to my ship, as it’s the same vandalous slag as on the title screen. I console myself that perhaps it was a rogue pilot that caused such destruction and get on with the job at hand, which predictably is shooting the advancing horde of very threatening looking light blue things. What am I talking about, of course they don’t look threatening, they look like little thin weedy ships - surely the runt of the enemy fleet being sent out first. And despite the odd sod shooting diagonally at me they don’t pose much of a problem, although they really do speed up like buggers as you get them down to the last few I have to say. The next wave are even more laughable, they look like the fat lads who couldn’t fit into their costumes properly trailing behind the very end of the annual gay pride march (I used to live in Brighton, I know what that looks like so trust me on that one. Believe me the sight of dozens of overweight men trying to wear a costume when the theme is “gold cowboys” is one you don’t forget in a hurry - All I’ll say is this: “cheekless gold leather chaps”).

Anyway, I digress.

Several things of note jump out at me while I am playing this - firstly the sound. The sound effects when you fire are wonderfully sci-fi while the explosion sound is very loud and bold indeed, surprisingly so in fact. Now, I don’t know how the actual machine sounds but I did discover that MAME doesn’t actually emulate the sound effects, it uses the “shortcut” of samples so maybe it’s just that they were sampled quite beefily or something? Whatever it was it sounds great. The graphics though, as I have already alluded to, are awful - proper Spectrum awful. Colour clash is EVERYWHERE, including some crazy colour squares appearing when an enemy happens to overlap with one of the background stars; the bloody background! I may be being a bit picky here, but surely on seeing the clashing going on all over the place the development team would at least tone it down a bit or something? But no, they clearly love a bit of clash these guys, love it….the gimps.

And it gets even worse. By the time you get to the third wave the clash is laughable, the green space ship fellas all mould into one ridiculous mess of overlaps and it really is quite distracting. So distracting in fact that I died a final death.

 Score: 2060

Oooh so close to nicking last place there, which tells you something about the value of that bottom score as it was my first pretty poor attempt. That means top 10 is a possibility so straight back in I say! As I start my second go I make a point of paying attention to the busy panel at the top of the screen. As well as your usual lives and all that gubbins, there is a nice little “menu” showing you which wave is next (from right to left) which tells me that I died on the green buggers who were pretty much halfway towards to guardian lad presumably at the end. Fair enough, nowt groundbreaking about that - but hang on, what’s this? a bloody FUEL gauge that’s what. Now, the other astro game also had a fuel bar and that proved to be a particularly bastardy one if you remember, robbing you of any lives you may have left with an immediate game over if it ran out - although It wasn’t all bad as you could shoot the asteroids to refuel slightly along the way. Happily this game has asteroids as well, loads of the buggers in fact throughout every level - but hold them giddy horses, these ones DON’T seem to refuel at all when you shoot them. Oh no, these little shits just get in the way and give you a pathetic 60 points when shot, no fuel, nothing. wankers.

I’m halfway through my second go when the game falls apart and it becomes clear that this game is a pox upon all gamers. It’s not only a pox but it revels in it’s poxiness, poxxing you at every opportunity until you can be poxxed no more. “Please game, I beg you, no more pox, I truly cannot stand a further pox!” you cry, yet it carries on regardless like a man possessed. Ok, you get the picture. So what causes such horror? Well, as we have discovered you have a finite and actually rather stingy fuel gauge forever counting down. That in itself would be ok but for what happens on the third wave during my second go. The green buggers certainly love a diagonal you see, and they are forever probing forward at you while you try and shoot them and it was while I was chasing the last remaining ship, which was really rather speedy at this stage, that he reached the bottom of the screen and disappeared from view. “No matter” thought I, “I’ll catch him as he appears again at the top”. Well he *did* appear again at the top (after a pretty bloody long pause considering the fuel is still ticking down) but he also managed to bring all of his fucking mates back to life in the process, the complete shit! And this my friend is where it breaks as it is now next to impossible to reach the guardian as you simply don’t have enough time/fuel. As right enough I get a few waves on to the little yellow beggars and my fuel runs out. 2 lives left? fuck you - game over. Cunts.

Score: 2550

I blink a few times in disbelief, what sort of behaviour is that for goodness sakes? Feverishly I try and work out a way of negating this issue yet nothing comes. As result I whip into my third go in a bit of a daze, literally petrified of letting one of the baddies get to bottom of the screen and running out of fuel as a result. Because of this one of the first wave manages to creep by and again they all appear again at the top. Ruined on the first bloody screen! F3, 5, 1 go the keys as I reset the twat and start again, that was a practice I say out loud for no particular reason. To no avail - again a ship gets past me, this time on the third wave again as a green ship literally screams diagonally from the top half of the screen all the way past me and off the screen. There are still three or four fucking ships flying about, yet I *know* whatever I do I’ll face the buggers again. DAMN THEIR EYES!

And then an idea hits me. Seeing as lives aren’t really a problem, what if I purposely kill myself when the fuel gets low? New ship, new fuel - job done. How stupid of me. Of course the particular space station that the player’s ships come from are run by a bunch of wankers as your nice new ship arrives with exactly the same amount of fuel as the one that just blew up. Now, I’m by no means a mechanic but this can only mean that the engineers purposely drain the fuel from the fresh new ships before giving them to you, why would they do that for fucks sake, that’s just unnecessary! That’s ballsed that one up then, but hang on it does sort of help. What if I were to use kamikaze tactics to stop ships getting past me? Worth a bash and immediately it pays dividends. Again one of the green slags makes a bid for it and I’m still shooting with the accuracy of Ray Charles so I whip over and smash straight into him, boom! Not only does that halt their advances, but when my fresh new ship arrives (sans extra fuel the gits) the enemy are all sat at the top of the screen again and they haven’t regrouped. Wahoo!

That proves to be the key as you really can’t afford to let one of the waves repeat as you simply don’t have enough fuel to get through to the end. Finally though, after about half a dozen attempts I do get to the guardian and while I was expecting the worst he turns out to be a complete poof, ha! Once he’s dead, you finally get fully refuelled (curiously by a white line that extends down from where the boss used to be) and it’s time for a second loop worth or enemies, just this time ever so slightly faster and more shooty. I manage to get a good way through before a green bastard manages to squeeze past me, probably knowing that I only have the single life left and thus rendering my collision tactic worthless. That’s enough to make sure I don’t get far enough to see that weedy guardian again.

Score: 6760

Still, that’s more like it! It’s not a massive score but it’s good enough for 8th place which isn’t bad at all. In truth the second loop wasn’t that much harder than the first so with a bit of concentration I reckon the bigger scores are within reach for sure.

A funny one this game, I mean it looks awful and there are some *really* harsh gameplay mechanics that render progress almost impossible from just a single mistake. Yet, it’s somehow endearing. While in the arcades the short gameplay time would have meant that the money kept flowing, now in it’s emulated state it makes for quite a decent challenge without requiring a massive time investment and somehow I want to keep playing. Maybe it’s just the masochist in me speaking but I think that’s just what I’ll do and will stick this on the list of games to have a decent stab at come funspot this year. It really isn’t for everyone though so I would suggest you steer clear unless you really fancy being kicked in the balls repeatedly and are happy to run the risk of having nightmares about that accursed fuel gauge. One thing is for sure though, in the battle of the astros this game comes in at second place behind the pseudo sequel a year later - although to be fair it wasn’t anywhere near as clearcut as I expected.

Playing rules:

Difficulty: Factory Default. Start: 3 lives. Bonus: 1 life at 10,000 points.
Dip-switch Bank A (Upright cabinet): 1-5=Doesn't matter; 6=Open; 7=Closed; 8=Open; Dip-switch bank A (Cocktail cabinet): 1-5=Doesn't matter; 6-7=Closed; 8=Open.

Current Record holders

1st: 299,100 - Gus Pappas - 1982
…
8th: 64,610 - Phil Lati - 1982


Long before the days of Alex Kidd and Sonic, SEGA were pumping out all kinds of crazy games, most notable being the absolutely mad “005″ that you may remember from way back at the beginning of this quest - well, Astro Blaster may just have been the game to offset such madness. Released in the same year as 005, Astro Blaster is a much more traditional fare - the much loved top down shooter and although I have never seen it before the screenshot certainly suggests that it’s pretty conventional. I’m not convinced that I’m a fan of that to be honest. As you may well have gathered some of my favourite discoveries on this quest have been the batshit insane games, the ones that have you controlling a watermelon fighting against the evil purple banjos (ok, we haven’t seen that yet but it’s only a matter of time I’m sure). 

Even the poxy name is boring; I wonder what this game could be about? oh, an astro spaceship blasting things. Is that it? I mean where’s my motivation? “Space Invaders” - shit! Things are actually invading us from space? QUICK lets get at them! “10 yard fight” - we have a fight on our hands in some sort of territorial conflict? I’m up for the fight, lemmie at ‘em! “Astro Blaster” - who cares? There is some sort of blasting going on in an astro fashion - why the hell do they need me? I’m off down the pub instead. I mean the game is off to a loser from the word go surely?

 That is unless the fucker actually talks to you.

Which of course it does (otherwise it would have been pointless me mentioning it silly). Now, by no means is this the first game to feature such genius, that accolade goes to the seminal “Berzerk” with it’s highly entertaining robot chatter or even “Gorf”, which used to scare the living shit out of me from the other side of the arcade. That being so, it was still a rather new technique back in the day and one that really made the machine stand out at the time, bravo SEGA you truly are the masters of marketing!

Before we get the game on, let’s take a quick look at the records. As is usually the way with the more obscure games the records all seem to be from the early 80s and none of them seem ridiculously high so we may be on for a winner. Saying that it could be another of those games that gives a third of a point per 100 ships killed or something so let’s not get carried away just yet eh? Enough of that, I guess we better go Astro Blasting, if I have to like - not as if it sounds very interesting.

“FIGHTER PILOTS NEEDED IN SECTOR WARS - PLAY ASTRO BLASTER!!!!!!”

Fuck my old boots! The second you turn the machine on it starts shouting at you. FIGHTER PILOTS NEEDED! Hang on, I could be one of them, where? SECTOR WARS! “Count me in!” I shout as I metaphorically pull on my fighter pilots uniform and run towards my ship. PLAY ASTRO BLASTER! Ok, you’re getting desperate now, you may as well have followed that with “OH PLEASE. PLEASE? look I didn’t choose the bloody name did I, please play me or I won’t be able to afford to buy my kids the new shoes they desperately need, I mean the ones they have worn out to almost their bare skin…please?” Despite that though, stroke of genius that was - talk about get a player interested. I can’t help feel something niggling away however, something that perhaps makes the whole thing all a bit of a waste of time. No time for that though, fighter pilots are needed - not wanted, NEEDED!

As soon as the game starts it becomes clear that the part of SEGA that chose the name have really let everyone down, the game is as frantic as it comes! Immediately you’re hit with half a dozen aliens whizzing about at the top of the screen, throwing bullets down at you as they go - they weren’t kidding when they said that they needed fighter pilots, the buggers are already here on our doorstep. “ALERT ALERT”, screams the announcer, “INVADERS IN SECTOR ONE, PLAYER ONE TO BATTLE STATIONS!” Fuck me, I’m here, I’m here - better get stuck in! So off you go, shooting away weaving in and out of the bullets in a panic. Hang on, what’s this? “LASER TEMPERATURE CRITICAL!” What does that mean? “Shit off” you scream as you notice the bar at the bottom of the screen, every time you fire the bar increases a little to reflect the heat of your laser until before you know it “LASER OVERHEATED” and you’re a sitting duck, unable to fire for what feels like minutes. Not only that but you also see an ever decreasing fuel gauge to make things even worse, bugger me, the pressure! Finally to top all of this off you have the music. Well I say “music”, it actually sounds like a cross between an engine revving and a drill and to make it even worse the speed and tone increases for every ship to destroy. Before you know it you have a fuel gauge running out, a burning hot laser that you’re afraid to fire too much and a couple of rabid aliens flitting about at great speed firing away whilst slowly advancing towards you. ARGHHH! I can’t take the pressure.

……And relax.

Soon after the shock has gone I was able to actually look at the game and I have to say I was rather pleasantly surprised. True, on the surface it is just another top down shooter in the Galaxian vein, but it has masses of variety and a couple of really smart touches to keep it interesting. The laser overheating and the fuel gauge turn out to be a decent pace setter, encouraging you to be conservative with your firing but also urging you to get on with it. Also, the waves of enemies are nice and varied with a mix of sizes and speeds each with unexpectedly erratic movement patterns. If that wasn’t enough, every couple of levels you get an asteroid shower followed by a small docking sequence where you fuel is replenished, giving you a well deserved breather. Some of the waves are quite tricky though, and a few in particular prove a little too frantic for my liking and I’m spent.

Score: 7,640

Not the best score that but a lively opener I suppose. Still keen I jump straight into the next game, but before I do I confirm what was bothering me before. The opening speech, willing you to play the game, getting you all riled up and ready, the very speech that made me eat my words about the naff title doesn’t play again when I start a new game. What that means is that it ONLY plays when the machine is first switched on. Now, you don’t need to be a veteran of the old arcade halls of the 80s to know that arcade machines are only ever turned on at the very most once a day, in the morning when the guy that works there goes round switching them all on ready for the day’s mauling. So after all of that effort to get people to play the bugger, the only person that will ever hear it is the arcade attendant. Now this is no reflection on arcade staff as a whole here, but I would imagine pretty much all of them have the willpower to resist the call to arms at 8am of a morning when they have hundreds of machines to switch on and a multitude of sins to clean off the floors and walls. Even if they did happen to be recruited, chances are they would be either sacked within hours or just use free credits anyway. Complete failure SEGA you tarts.

Anyway, I have the unusual benefit of still being riled up from the first episode so that doesn’t matter a jot to me and I’m back in - and then it happens, as it so often does on this voyage of discovery. At the beginning of my second go I start getting adventurous and press a few of the other buttons and blow me if I don’t find a slow motion button. That’s right, fuck you in the ear Max Payne and your ilk with your bullet time, this is 1981 and we have a slow motion button! On pressing the aforementioned button, “warp” is activated and everything bar your ship slows down to a complete crawl making shooting the enemies and avoiding the bullets a breeze. Of course it doesn’t last forever and it’s not long before the announcer chap is counting you down from 10 and you’re back in the room as it were, full speed restored. Also it soon becomes apparent that you can only use it once per life/round when like a spoilt kid I tap the button straight afterwards screaming “again, again, again!” and nowt happens. Fair enough I suppose, but wow what a subtle addition that is. Actually it makes the title “Astro Blaster” all the more stupid, this game should be called “Bullet time blaster motherfucker” or at least something that screams innovation from the hilltops. (Actually on reflection that may be a tad unfair as this *was* the early 1980s and pretty much every arcade game was an innovation in itself I suppose. Still, seems a shame it didn’t raise itself above the Galaxian clones of this world a little more.)

With this new found power I strive on, using the slow motion warp to navigate the trickier waves to grand effect and before I know it I’m a good half dozen waves in. Fuel begins to be more and more of a problem as you go through the game however, with some of the waves taking a little longer than you’d like to clear and the announcer wastes no time in telling you so - “FUEL LEVELS MARGINAL” it screams. In true crazy videogame logic I find that there is a way to replenish the fuel besides docking, and that is by shooting the flaming asteroids as they come hurtling towards you, because of course doing that would obviously refuel a spaceship, stupid.

Score: 14,720

At least we are in the realms now, and while the enemies are getting a little trickier it certainly feels more like the occasional rock hard wave than a difficulty progression as such that cause the most trouble. With clever use of the slow motion warp button I reckon you could get on top of this game. 

Third and final play and subtle bonuses still continue to show themselves, sometimes literally. Several times the message “secret bonus, 900 points” flashed up on the screen, and aside from an occasion where I docked without touching the controls (it really is quite a generous area to dock into) I have no idea what I did to deserve such an accolade. Don’t look a gifthorse in the mouth and all that and besides I’m sure with a little effort it wouldn’t be too hard to spot what’s going on. Just as intriguingly you are told just before the fuels runs out that all scores are doubled - suggesting that there is cause to fly close to the wind fuel wise to increase your scoring potential, all interesting stuff and in attempting to do just that I lose the game completely even though I had a life left. Running out of fuel causes an immediate game over! HARSH stuff there SEGA harsh indeed, you really can be a cruel mistress sometimes especially as I was on a semi decent score at the time.

Score: 16060 (with a life in hand you cheeky slag of a game!)

All in all that’s a bloody good game. Looking at the scores the record would take quite a marathon, but it doesn’t strike me as impossible like some of the other records out there. I reckon with a little practice I could get on the board as 60k isn’t that far away. Definitely one to play again, if not to just see how many varieties of enemy there are, there are at least a dozen that I have seen with no repeating, which is unheard of for a game released so early on in the 80s.

Interestingly (or not) apparently on further reading there were THREE separate revisions of this game. The original version was allegedly almost impossible to play so they tweaked it a little and made it easier. Still, the second version was too hard so they tweaked it again. I was playing the resulting third version yet the records don’t appear to make a distinction between them. I would imagine that it would also be the 3rd revision mind as by the looks of it the changes were made proper early doors after the release. Told you it was interesting stuff. Hey! wake up! ah, forget it……

Right,  I have a new entry that I’m just polishing off which should be out in a few hours plus I’m also going to get this blog back on the regular updates again. I know it’s been a complete pain in the arse checking back every now and then with no luck, but from now on I am aiming to post an update at least EVERY week. Hopefully that can mean a few per week but we’ll see how it goes - one step at a time and all that..:)

Cheers for sticking by chaps, really appreciate it.

Tonsillitis. Not only a bigger to spell but an absolute killer for a chap my age. That’s what had me knocked out over Christmas and since then I’ve been catching up on the work I missed.

So as you can see, no updates. Arse.

Only one thing for it, better pull my finger out, the quest is most certainly still ON!

Playing rules:

Difficulty: Tournament (Hard). Start: 3 lives. Bonus: 1 life every 10,000 points.
Dip-switch:(R5) 1-2=ON; 3=OFF; 4-5=ON; 6=OFF; 7-8=ON. Dip-switch:(L8) 1=ON; 2=OFF; 3-8=ON. Dip-switch:(M12) 1-2=ON; 3-4=OFF/Unused

Current Record holders

1st: 167,790 - Donavan Stepp - 2004
…
33rd: 5,520 - Ron Corcoran - 1981


Nice - It’s bloody Arkanoid all over again, no sooner am I rid of Asteroids, here comes a “remix” version from a year later. Now I know I actually ended up quite enjoying Asteroids after all those years of playing it like a mong, but lets not bloody push it eh Atari? Nevertheless I am but a pawn in all of this so I need to move on with the job, head held up high (Also, I’ve taken a peek and this is the last Asteroid game on the list for now, so it’s not so bad).

But what’s this? Surely some kind of tomfoolery is afoot - in fact I’m sure of it. Now, I know that it hasn’t been that long since I watched Back to the future but if I were a betting man I would stick a quid on time travel being a reality. Why? Well, before you get the science museum on the phone, it’s not through any fancy formulas or any such gubbins - the proof is right here in front of us: this game. How can that possibly be? It’s as if some of the Atari devs had read my last entry and aimed to address each and every issue I had - in some sort of future past land.

Before we go into that, let’s look at what we have here. You don’t hear the term “Deluxe” much these days and when you do it tends to indicate a wanky marketing attempt at classing up something above it’s true worth. Deluxe chicken burger at McDonalds is just a normal chicken burger filled with a few unused sauces from the back room and a slightly herbier bread. Deluxe DVD editions tend to just be the same as the normal one, just with a snazzy shiny cardboard sleeve. Case and point: Ferrero Rocher are considered the deluxe chocolate when really they are about as classy as a box full of donkeyballs dipped in sawdusty chocolate. What I’m trying to say via the wonderful world of simile is that Deluxe very rarely is a good thing. Also, take a look at the year, 1980 - only one year after the original, another bad sign - especially considering how popular the original was at the time. Oh dear, what have Atari done?

I’ll tell you what they’ve done - improved the original in pretty much EVERY way.

First thing they noticed was that the original was just too damn easy. Arcades in those days were all about getting people onto the machines, getting their quarter, making them their bitch and sending them home to mumma. The trick was all about doing it in such a way that made it a challenge rather than a chore - meaning the players would flock back for another go. What they *didn’t* want was a game that people could sit at for hours on the same measly quarter - bad news bears. With Asteroids they had just that, and to make it worse it was a massively popular machine by all accounts so queues and pissed off people were common. Can you just imagine; the brand new game of the hour is right there in front of you, but before you can get a go you have to watch some fuck sit there not even shooting the last few rocks but just picking off the flying saucer every now and then - FOR HOURS. No no no, that’s no way for a “deluxe” machine to behave, so straight away the difficulty is ramped up something rotten.

How do you make a game as simple as Asteroids that much more difficult? Good question. They did this in several ways - first off the default DIP SWITCH settings are “tournament (hard)” - no mucking about with this baby, you come anywhere near it and whether you like it or not you’re in a tournament buster, and a hard one at that. As a result the whole game seems a little faster and a lot more frantic - the smaller chunks of asteroid especially whip about like, well whippets and can be a right bugger to avoid if you have a couple on the go at once.

Secondly we have a new enemy in our midst! It starts of innocuously enough - floating around like a big gay gangbang hexagon, but as soon as you shoot it, it splits up firstly into 3 paired up “friends” and then into 6 individual ships of undetermined sexuality. Probably enraged by this turn of events they then make it their life’s aim to go and duff you up - which considering that they are lovers and not fighters and don’t actually have any guns, consists of them basically trying to bum you. Hold on captain, what’s with all of this gay stuff I hear you cry? Well, calm down Graham Norton - just *look* at the formation these six brave ships choose to fly in. Before that though, imagine six youngsters, just graduated from evil flying academy - 5 long years of combat and aerobatics training, these six lads are the creme de la creme, the top one percent, THE elite. Today they finally get to go out on active duty; apparently some crazy man is out there shooting all of the rocks! Jesus, the humanity of it - he MUST be stopped at all costs. It gets better for our young evil heroes however, lest not to dilute the talent they have all been chosen to fly out in the same formation - oh, how perfect! As they walk to their fighter craft, they can barely hold back the tears of joy - in the distance you see their parents, proud as can be, saluting their pride and joy as they all go out to battle.

They then fly out looking like this:

Now - I may or may not be correct here, and I am by no means an expert on such matters, but that right there is NOT a military formation. That right there is a homosexual “conga line” in full flow. Also, as one would expect when all of the ships in question have their thrusters faced *inwards* they just aimlessly float about, clearly too engrossed in their deviancy.

No matter, once they are shot apart they can be a right bugger to avoid and combined with a screen full of rocks and the occasional flying saucer it can all get a bit too much.

Ah yes - the flying saucers. Clearly the victim of the exploit in the first game, what has become of them? Well, you like to shoot the flying saucers over and over again for the easy biggie points eh? Well this time round they really like shooting you as well, in fact they love a bit of it. Where before the large flying saucer was clearly piloted by Ray Charles and would barely even get near you with any of its shots, this time round after a few warning shots it flings one right at you. I don’t know the exact science (I know, shocking) but it feels like pretty much every 3rd or 4th shot is aimed right at your chops without fail. As for the smaller flying saucer, this time around they may as well have bloody homing shots as they get you shot almost before you can see the wee little buggers - small angry man syndrome at its finest. Something else I noticed, and thought was quite minor at the time, was the fact that the flying saucer’s shots now wrap across the screen as well. I was pretty sure that they didn’t used to , so I looked it up - and by jove it was good that I did. Well, not good in a save the world sort of way, but good in the context of this thing. You see, the “shooting nowt but flying saucers all day” exploit of the first game was made all the easier by the fact that their shots stopped at the edge of the screen while yours wrapped. Apparently the pro’s at this particular tactic used to hide right up there in the extreme corner of the screen and then regardless off which side the flying saucer would enter, they could simply spin and shoot it without much risk of being hit themselves - the crafty beggars! Therefore, with this version the fact that the flying saucer shots also wrap, twinned with their new found accuracy is a direct blow to this tactic and hoorah to that I say - in fact, it addresses pretty much everything I moaned about with the first game. How convenient. Hmmmmmm.

Which brings us to the records - immediately it’s clear that this bump in difficulty plus the measures to stop the exploit have had significant effect. While the top score on the original Asteroids was in the tens of millions, the high score here is a mere 167 thousand. Of course I say mere, I can’t score anywhere near that - but considering the scoring system is near identical that’s a pretty major difference it has to be said. Good signs indeed, as it saves me from another long winded rant, which was nice. Also however, there has clearly been a competition involving this game at FUNSPOT - the “FUNSPOT classic 2006″ as a matter of fact. How do I know this? Well, there are literally dozens of records on the list that are attributed to various people at that event, that’s how. What this means in real money is that there was a mini tournament at the event and basically anyone with a score in that tournament entered the record books. The effect of this is twofold: Firstly it’s a good thing as it means more achievable scores for guys like us but with that it also means that the records are slightly less impressive due to the fact that anyone that turned up and played are on there. Of course, that being said, the last score on the list (33rd) was from 1984 so there were obviously no mugs playing that day as they had all beaten that. Would I be within that group or would I be one of the mugs? Well, before the last entry I would have been already looking for the handle on my head, but now I have a new found confidence in such things - I actually felt comfortable with my performance and improvement on the original, bring it on!

Booting this bugger up, I again leave the artwork enabled as I seem to remember there being some sort of backdrop when I saw the actual machine at FUNSPOT - a backdrop that complimented the striking glow of the vectors pretty well if my memory serves me correctly. Again however, it just doesn’t have the same look in MAME, in fact with the duller graphics it actually ends up being pretty distracting which is a shame. It doesn’t really get in the way though, so I leave it on for the authentic experience - and authentic experience I get. Buoyed by my apparent new found skill I flounder in perhaps a little too confidentially and make the first mistake straight away by aiming at the large rocks first. Soon the screen is full of speedy small shards of asteroid and it makes even my “wave” technique proper hard to carry off. It’s here that I discover a life saver - the hyperspace button is gone (wahey!) and in it’s place we now have a “shield” button (double wahey!). The shield button proves to be an inspired addition and it single-handedly prevents my first score being absolutely woeful. Small rock flying your way? Tap the shield button and *boing* - the dirt is gone! Ahem, I mean the rock is gone - like a crazy interspace game of bumper cars, just with erm, spaceships and asteroids.

As is always the way with life, with this new found super power I suddenly feel like I can take on the very best, only to taste disappointment in the shape of a rock when the shield runs out and stops working. That’s right, the shield turned from being a world beater to a wet squib in a matter of seconds. I’m being harsh of course, it’s still a great addition, certainly better than that poxy hyperspace killer of yesteryear - just it all seemed so easy for a minute there - what was I thinking?

Score: 14,680

Still, not a bad score that for such a poor go - good enough for 23rd place no less (told you some of the scores were a bit pish).

I still find it hard to believe just how much better this version is, everywhere you look there are considered improvements. The ship you control has doubled in complexity, it is now twice as detailled with TWO whole polygons, giving it a decidedly attractive facelift. The controls too feel improved and I am really beginning to enjoy playing, especially in the more frantic moments.

Deep into my second go, and I’m sensibly keeping the amount of whizzy rocks to a minimum and it’s all going rather well. That is until the 15,000 mark. Partly because the screen is temptingly telling me that the next bonus life is but 5,000 points away, but mostly it’s due to being double teamed by the flying saucers and the big gay formation ships. The tactic for the formation is thus: Shoot to seperate them and then run away like a little girl. Once you are about half a screen away, turn round and shoot at them as they stream towards you. They’re quite slow and it would appear that they don’t arrive until the rocks are somewhat scarce. I would like to think that it is another genius design decision, but it’s most probably due to the fact that the poor 1981 hardware can’t handle that many things on the screen at once, bless it. Whatever the reason, they’re slow and they get all they deserve. However, in another cunning move, nicely avoiding another of the original’s problems that I pointed out, these babies are one of the main ways that the game gets you thrown out on your ear. You see, they may start off slow, but they get progressively faster each and every time they are vanquished and appear again. This may not seem much, but just you wait until you are faced with six speedy ships chasing you about like a benny hill sketch (although without any old bald man head slapping unfortunately, or the music….awwww). In fact they get really rather fast by the time you get anywhere near 20,000 and I soon began to dread them arriving at all. They did, they chased, I died.

Score: 22,740

Better this time, although my bonus life at 20k didn’t last long. Good enough for 21st place now, so we’re on the up!

Really really enjoying this game though, and I feel somehow like a traitor to my former self and my old established hate for the game nags at me each time I play - but I can’t really fault it, I just can’t! The collision detection is absolutely spot on, the graphics smooth and bold, the challenge in this deluxe version is really well pitched - it’s just a bloody ace game. My third and final go goes pretty much the same way as the second, but this time for some reason the small angry flying saucers appear a little earlier in the game and that proves much too much, especially when combined with the faster formation ships. Absolute carnage.

Score: 23,680

No improvement in the rankings there, but the top 10 score is only a whisker away at less than double (ok, it’s quite a whisker I admit) and I fully reckon with practice I could get well up there. Stick this fecker on the list of gooduns, in the place of Asteroids itself of course - this is one I really quite fancy getting good at. Interestingly I read that the deluxe version, despite being an improvement in every way (those time travelling idea stealing gits - I didn’t even get a credit!) didn’t do that well at all money and popularity wise, especially compared to the original. That really is a shame as it is so much better whilst being very very similar. For me this is the definitive Asteroids game and without the exploit it is the one that everyone should be playing that’s for sure.

(On an interesting note, as I write this, Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe has been released on the Xbox 360 Live arcade and although I haven’t tried them myself I would recommend you all give it a bash. I can’t see how the controls would map to a joypad but if you have a 360 it can’t hurt to try can it?)

Playing rules:

Difficulty: Factory Default. Start: 3 lives. Bonus: 1 life every 10,000 points.
Dip-switch:8 Toggle: 1-2=ON; 4-6=Coin Mech; 7=ON; 8=OFF. Dip-switch:4 Toggle: 1-2=ON; 3-4=OFF/Unused

Current Record holders

1st: 41,336,440 - Scott Safran - 1982
…
23rd: 1,137,050 - Ron Corcoran - 1981
24th: 313,780 - Donald Hayes - 2001


Ok, here it is - one of the daddies, but with it we now have a problem. See, any self respecting retro arcade “fan” feels obliged, nay compelled to be good at games that are the very pillars of gaming as we know it. That’s not to say you have to master all of the founding father games, just have a level of competence that you are happy with, a level of ability that will allow you to hold your head high and feel qualified on such matters. Bearing all that in mind, I have to wonder why I bothered with such a grandeur intro, because this is Asteroids, a game that I have never got with. Every attempt ends in tears as I play like a thumbless wonder, floundering all over the place crashing into this, missing that and generally making a mess of things. In short, I am complete dogshit at this game. - and it gets worse.

Asteroids is such a well know game that it also takes away the voyage of discovery that these rambling blog entries tend to enjoy at great length. You control a ship that rotates and shoot rocks, we know already. Balls. Hang on though, occasionally a flying saucer comes and…….oh, you know already. But but but, there is this hyperspace key that…….what’s that? shut up ya mook - we know already? Oh ok. So….what are we left with? Essentially we’re left with a game that everybody knows, with the added bonus that I’m proper pump at it. Looking at the records it is very clear that this will prove an embarrassment to all involved, so lets just skip it shall we? yeah? marvellous………..Don’t be soppy, of course we won’t skip it - come back! This quest may be about becoming an arcade champion, but we don’t have to be good at *every* game do we? No, of course we don’t  - I mean why start now eh? Alright alright, settle down now.

I haven’t seen an actual Asteroids arcade cab for many many years, in fact I can’t imagine that there are that many knocking about these days. So, when I wandered up to one at FUNSPOT earlier in the year it was a nice surprise. Most surprising was just how beautiful the vector graphics were - I seriously don’t remember them being that striking. You read and hear many things about Asteroids, but I bet you’d be hard pushed to hear much praise for the graphics, I mean its in crudely shaped black and white after all. Well that’s true to an extent, but you can’t ignore a certain romance with vector games - I mean just look at how popular the Vectrex is on the retro scene.

What clearly helped in this case is that the FUNSPOT arcade has just the right ambience about it, the sounds, the smells and just the right level of lighting (i.e quite low). Actually all that is missing is the small layer of cigarette smoke just above head height - for obvious reasons of course (although in a weird way, even as a non smoker I *miss* this small detail as well). Considering all of this, clean vector graphics are truly at their best and I strode towards the arcade cab with true admiration in my eyes. Not thirty seconds later and the bubble had popped, I called the game a “complete cunt” for hyperspacing me to death again and my 25cents was gone, never to be seen again. My score was something in the teens at best, maybe a few thousand - happy days.

So, here we are again - this time in the comfort of my own home and things don’t start well as sadly the graphics look dull and knackered without the sharp beam of light behind them. That and the fact that I felt the need to try and have the artwork switched on (after it being absolutely necessary for Armor Attack a few games back) - I soon remembered why I had it switched off in the first place.

Not only does it look like the screen now has haemorrhoids (or for the fainter of stomach imagine them as curry Nick Nack crisps perhaps) but it actually covers nearly a quarter of the playing screen! I mean, I’m all for making the emulation experience as authentic as possible, but this is just dopey surely? While the arcade cabinet did indeed have this artwork, it was printed a few inches in front of the actual gaming screen so you could see past the obstruction with little problem - not so here; It’s not as if I need more of a challenge either for goodness sakes. Oh and did I mention how dull the graphics looked? sob…..

Right that’s quite enough of that. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty, let’s look at the scores and get our professional head on. What we have here by the looks of it is what they call a “marathonable game”. This is another one of the small scoring games, so to even begin to get near the millions you surely have to start measuring the gameplay time in days rather than hours. Either that, or there is an exploit somewhere that has been deemed legal as far as scoring is concerned. My hunch is that it’s a little from pile A, a little from pile B. 

We’ll come back to that, let’s get straight into a game and get a benchmark score on the board.

Score: 5,900

Yes, that was quick wasn’t it? Promising though, now all I need to do is multiply that score by about TEN MILLION and I’m in record territory. If you weren’t aware of the job on our hands before, you are now.

Only one thing for it, I’m clearly playing it wrongly - time for Science to get involved, more specifically, Trial and Error science!

Let’s look at the cold hard facts first. You control a small ship which is able to rotate left and right using a key for each. As well as this you also are able to enable the thrusters and “boost” yourself about in the direction you are facing. Simple enough, no fuel gauge or overheating or any of that business - boost all day long if you like. To enable you to become the fighting machine that you so clearly are you also have a “fire” button. Again, no ammo limits here so a slow steady stream of bullets are constantly available if you so desire. Finally we have the desperation “hyperspace” button - theory here is to press this bugger when a collision would appear to be inevitable and randomly teleport somewhere else on the screen - not without risk mind you as you can be teleported into danger and die immediately.

Your opponents are the aforementioned asteroids themselves that float about, breaking into smaller and smaller parts when shot. You shoot all of the bits and its on to the next level where it all starts again only faster and stuff. Aside from the rocks themselves you’ll occasionally find a small flying saucer will float on the screen and try and rough you up a bit, just to keep the game fruity and flowing. That’s it! Sound simple? Good - cock on.

Technique 1: Stand the fuck still and shoot stuff
It makes sense to start with this one because this is my default way of playing the game. Thing is, what with all of these pieces of asteroid flying about, especially the smaller fast ones, I just can’t concentrate on shooting, steering AND thrusting all at the same time(careful there carry on fans). Steering and shooting? No problem. Steering and thrusting? Again, easy (although bloody useless). All three? forget it. Now before you all point it out, YES this is why I am shit at the game. Still maybe this is the secret that all the kids are talking about. let’s try a game where I don’t move at all and just concentrate on shooting.

Score: 8140 

That didn’t actually go as bad as I’d thought it would. What it did tell me though was that I obviously *do* move about a bit usually as it was really quite tricky to resist moving when a massive rock is on it’s way. There is definitely some advantage to solely concentrating on just shooting stuff though - although of one of the flying saucers manages to fling a shot your way then you’re shafted. Not a record breaking technique clearly.

Technique 2: Fly around like an idiot and try and shoot stuff on the move
So we’ve tried standing still, let’s try moving about like a loony and seeing how that works out. That’s not to say that the technique is all about moving and nothing else, but lets be a fully mobile killing machine, keep ‘em guessing and all that.

Score: 5100

Nadgers. That was really rather tricky. What really hinders you when you play this way are the wraparound nature of the screens. Everything, including your bullets, wraps around the screen whenever it reaches an edge, so if a rock leaves the right hand of the screen it re-appears almost immediately on the exact opposite side still travelling the way it was. With that in mind you soon find that anywhere but the central area of the screen is a bad place to be as it is really hard to know what is going to appear right on top of you if you stray near an edge. Of course, flying around like a spacker means that most of the time you find yourself being killed by something appearing pretty much right on top of you. While you have the advantage of your shots reaching across the screen, it just isn’t enough to be worthwhile in itself.

Technique 3: Stay in the middle pretty much and use the Hyperspace to your advantage
Ok, this could be the winner. Don’t limit yourself to staying in one spot, but don’t stray too far from the centre. If anything comes too close slap that hyperspace button to win and profit. Easy.

Score: 13,630

That’s more like it - although the hyperspace button was an absolute mess. Not only is it hard to keep poised over the button, being able to press it in time is pretty tricky. Many a time I pressed it in a panic when it was actually no danger at all. ITS COMING STRAIGHT FOR US! no it’s no…….ZZZZzzzap! Considering the dangers in hyperspacing this isn’t advisable if you can really help it - and OH, what danger! Several times I died immediately after coming out of hyperspace for what appeared to be no reason at all. Either it killed me for shits and giggles or there *was* a rock there but it blew up with me. I can’t be sure but I’m convinced it was more the former. The score was a lot better though, but I reckon that’s more to do with the moving subtlety thing. Sooooooo

Technique 4: Ignore the fucking hyperspace button and concentrate on staying away from danger without leaving the centre
It’s with the last attempt that I have an idea. With the rocks flowing on and off the screen you can sort of see their movement as “waves”. Rather than my usual focus on moving and shooting, maybe I should try spotting the next “wave” - making sure my ship isn’t on collision course with anything and then shooting all I can before the next “wave”. Does that make sense? Well I think it does to me, I suppose we’ll see.

Score: 24,400

Fuck my old boots, it actually worked. Although the “waves” I keep on going on about aren’t as distinct as they could be, what with some rocks having different speeds, I really could see the enemies in this way and it made me a hell of lot calmer. So much so that the game actually became a bit enjoyable (I know!) With the panic out of the way I actually had time to see some of the more subtle parts of the game.

One thing that became immediately apparent was the need to avoid having a screen full of small asteroid pieces. The natural instinct is to always go for the big ones (which explains why all the ladies try to get in my pants, but that’s another story) but that is actually the last thing you want to do! If you can keep a few of the bigguns on the screen while you clear the smaller debris it makes things a hell of a lot easier. Also, while the avoid then shoot plan works a treat most of the time, be careful not to shoot an Asteroid when it is too close to you as chances are it will split up in crazy ways and suddently you find yourself smashed before the next wave begins allowing you to adjust. The last thing to learn is that the flying saucers are fucks of the highest order. Pretty much every single death on this attempt was because of one of the smaller type that comes a bit later in the game. Bloody things.

What we can’t avoid here is the fact that I am getting absolutely nowhere near the records and I think I have worked out why that is (no it’s not just because I’m shit).

Technique 5: Leave a few asteroid pieces floating about harmlessly and “harvest” the high scoring flying saucers.
Here we come to the nitty gritty. See, the rocks are worth 20 points each shot so they can’t be used to build up much of a score. The flying saucers on the other hand, they’re worth thousands (especially the smaller ones with vicious “small saucer” syndrome). That’s fine I hear you say - but there isn’t actually any way that the game forces you on, as it were. Most games stop you hanging around on a single level by having either a time limit or an invincible baddie that comes on and ushers you along. - not this game, in fact it’s the opposite. If you leave just a single piece of rock floating about, then the game just keeps pouring flying saucers at you, one after the other without ever making you go to the next level. In other words, the big scores are coming from the clever management of the saucers and not the rocks at all. Let’s have a go.

Score: gave up at 42,000ish

Now we have a problem, albeit different to the one we alluded to at the beginning of this chapter. The problem with this game isn’t just that i’m rubbish at it - the problem is that getting a high score simply isn’t any fun and strictly not playing the game as it was intended. Playing the game in this way takes away pretty much everything the game stands for bar the shooting of the flying saucers. Ok, this isn’t actually the record holders’ problem, in fact I would agree that it should be allowed in the official rules as it isn’t strictly an exploit - it just isn’t for me. If I become world record holder at one of the games on this list, I want it to be something that I would proudly demonstrate to all that want to watch - to stand up in any arcade and show my skills. Watching someone sit there with an empty screen bar a couple of harmless rocks while they wait for a flying saucer every 10 seconds or so isn’t much fun - especially considering you will be doing it for HOURS and HOURS. To see what I mean and to contrast (not to gay him up or anything) watch the video of Tony Temple winning the record on Missile Command - even better watch him live at FUNSPOT one day. It’s bloody night and day I tell you.

So where did that all get us? Well I want to make it clear that I don’t de-value the record in any way, strictly speaking you are playing the machine at it’s own game, finding a weakness and taking advantage - that’s absolutely fine by me. Being such an old game, it clearly wasn’t tested against such playing techniques - If it were then I would expect either a time limit or invincible enemy hurry up as I’ve mentioned earlier. It’s just not for me that’s all. As I always say, and will keep saying I’m sure, the records aren’t actually that important to me compared to the experience and the opportunity to play these games again in anger.

So all that being said, I’m sticking to technique 4 in the future. Not only that, but I’m taking this as a victory. Yup that’s right you heard me - I started off being dogshit at this game, and now I’m merely poor. While I may not be able to walk into an Asteroid competition with my head held high, I at least now have a way of playing that not only makes it fun to play, but i reckon I could beat a few kids at it if I put my mind to it…..Toddlers maybe…….whatever, that’ll do me.�