All About Asteroids

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What you need to know about the greatest Atari game
By Gregory D. George

September 7, 2001

Few games in history are as recognized as the Atari classic, Asteroids. The pounding sound effects, simple graphics, and strangely addictive gameplay has permeated throughout all of American society. One only has to watch TV shows like NBC's Freaks and Geeks, or the classic film National Lampoon's Vacation to realize just how entrenched this game has become in our popular culture.

The one, the only, the original and the best, Asteroids by Atari.

Not many games have been copied or ported as often as Asteroids. Pac-Man perhaps, or Space Invaders, would definitely be nearest competitors for the clone crown. Even today, Asteroids clones and ports are popping up as Java applets, or in current releases for modern game systems such as the Sega Dreamcast.

History

The idea of Asteroids was originally conceived by Lyle Raines who was Atari's vice president of engineering in 1979. Ed Logg, eventually took the lead on the project and is credited with it's programming.

The game's concept is simple: Shoot the slow moving large rocks into medium sized rocks. Shoot the medium sized rocks into even smaller rocks. The smaller the size of the rocks, the faster they move. This asteroid field puts the player in an ever-increasing danger zone of flying debris. The UFO's were added to spice things up and keep the player from just sitting there avoiding the asteroids.

Asteroids was designed on the same hardware as another of Atari's classics: Lunar Lander. Both games used the high resolution, black and white vector-scan screens. Yet Lunar Lander never became the world-wide phenomena that Asteroids did. Asteroids was so popular when it was released, it replaced Space Invaders as the king of the arcades and gave Atari enough cash to be financially independent from Warner.

"Senior engineer Steve Calfee reflected that Asteroids appeals to some low, primitive drive in the human mind to clean and take control of the environment. Blasting asteroids into rubble until a once-crowded screen turned into a neat black field appealed to people whose lives were nothing but a field of chaos. For them, Asteroids became a metaphor for life." - Paul Schuytema, Microsoft Arcade, The Official Strategy Guide.

Asteroids Deluxe removed the randomized hyperspace and included a shield instead.

Space Duel added some strange new features.

Blasteroids moved the series from vector to raster.

Space Fury by Sega. Down and dirty blasting action.

Sequels, Variants, and Clones

Atari tried to improve on the original Asteroids game introducing Asteroids Deluxe in 1980. This version of the game offered animated graphics, better sound, and more in-depth gameplay. It also included a color backdrop to make the game more interesting to play.

Also in 1980, Atari released Space Duel which included multi-player capability, complex physics, improved sound effects, and, most importantly, color vector graphics. Unfortunately, Space Duel was never as popular or as well known as the original primarily due to the strangeness of the objects being blasted. No longer was the player fighting an endless armada of asteroids and UFOs, but a strange assortment of geometric shapes. People used to rock-blasting didn't know what to make of the new game.

Atari's most recent Asteroidsrevision came in 1987 from Atari Games. Blasteroids did away with the vector screens in favor of more modern raster images. Blasteroids added morphing ships, power-ups, and highly detailed images.

Then there is Space Fury, Sega's answer to Asteroids. This game took all of the familiar concepts and melted them together into a very unique action game. Unlike the slow, methodical pace of Asteroids, Space Fury is a pure action game. Your adversary is a one-eyed alien taunting you at every step. Who could forget his condescending statement he makes when you plunk your quarters into the machine: "So, a creature for MY amusement!"

Home Versions

There are too many home versions of Asteroids, to be able to catalog them all! From official versions to shareware clones, the game has managed to appear on practically every video game console and computer in one form or another!

Asteroids for the Atari 2600 was quite an accomplishment as it was the first 2600 game to reach a whopping 8K in size! This is quite a feat considering that the 2600 was designed to only address 4K of memory. While the 2600 version lacked the originals vector graphics, it did include the core gameplay and enough options (hyperspace, shields, flip, UFOs, easy or hard asteroids) to keep gamers happy at home.

Other versions of Asteroids include those for Atari systems such as the 7800, Lynx, 8-bit computer line, and the ST line. One important exception, is the Atari 5200. This version, identical to the 8-bit home computer versions, was never released and exists only as a prototype. Atari also released home versions of Asteroids through it's AtariSoft label for competing game and computer systems.

The Atari Jaguar, while never receiving an official Asteroids game did get some hobby versions of the game written. One of which can be found at

http://justclaws.atari.org/devcats/protos/ithink/

Some home clones of Asteroids include Mine Storm for the Vectrex, Astro Smash for the Intellivision (although some would call this one a stretch), and Space Fury for the ColecoVision.

Home Versions for Atari Consoles
2600 Asteroids	5200 Asteroids (Unreleased, same as the 8-bit version.)	7800 Asteroids
Lynx Super Asteroids	ST Asteroids Deluxe	Jaguar Asteroids by iThink.

Reviving a Legacy

Asteroids 3D by Activision.

In 1993 Microsoft released Microsoft Arcade which included a conversion of Asteroids for PC compatibles. In 1998, Activision released the latest version of Asteroids for PC compatibles and the Sony PlayStation. In 2001, Infogrames released Atari Anniversary for the Dreamcast and PC compatibles which included perfect emulated versions of Asteroids and other classic Atari games.

Home versions of Asteroids will always be available. Whether it is emulated versions of the real thing, updated versions with modern graphics and sounds, or clones written by someone who "just wanted to prove that they could."

There is no stopping the enduring legacy of Asteroids. Along with Pong, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders, Asteroids will forever be a part of American history and culture.

Sources:

Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Video Games, 3rd Edition, by Leonard Herman.
Microsoft Arcade: The Official Strategy Guide, by Paul Schuytema.