Asteroids & Deluxe

Asteroids, in my opinion, is a classic game that deserves its place in history, but at the same time has not aged well enough to where it's a game, like Pac-Man, that's worth playing at this point. Unfortunately for me, it seems enough people disagree with me to warrant releasing the game along with a "Deluxe" version for the low low price of $5 on the Xbox Live Arcade.

THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!

The classic game always bothered me because the bullets you fired were literally 1 pixel. I always had trouble following where my bullets were going. The "classic" version of the game is a very faithful adaptation, but I'm unsure if it's my TV or the fact that it's on a screen other than a vector screen that causes the amount of flicker that goes on. It's the kind of subtle flicker that can cause eye pains, too, it's bad. All in all, the fact that it's a faithful recreation will mean something to some people. It's not been completely botched the way, say, Mr. Driller's translation was. It just really points out the inherent flaws of such an old game to have a completely pointless and endless game that really provides no reason to play beyond the 10 minute mark.

Deluxe is not Delicious.

The real meat of this rerelease, though, is the DELUXE version of Asteroids, with brand shiny new 3D graphics and... well... nothing else, really. The deluxe version of the game adds exactly ZERO gameplay elements to the old game, instead relying on particle effects and some polygons to make it worth playing. Problem is... it really isn't. The bullets, while finally being visible, don't appear to have any more of a chance to hit those aggravating small asteroids. In fact, the smallest size asteroids are more motion blur effects and crap than actual ASTEROID, making them harder to hit than the original game. The only thing one could say appreciably changed was that, since hyperspace has a fancy graphical effect going into it and NO VISUAL CUES WHATSOEVER going out of it, it's actually harder to follow your ship, because you're expecting some form of fancy effect to tell you where you went. At least in the original game, you just blipped in and out. Besides that, the only real appreciable attempt at originality was Throttle Monkey mode, and even that's been used in other Atari XBLA remakes.

This Monkey Needs to be Spanked

Throttle Monkey mode is offered in both the original and Deluxe versions. This basically turns up the speed to about 3 times the original, making an already unwieldy ship even harder to control, and making the game a billion times harder. This would be passable as an oddity if half of the achievements weren't tied to the damn mode. Some of them are damn near impossible, and they'd require amazing reflexes even if the ship were possible to control...

I'm Losing Control! We're Going Down in Flames!

Leading me into my biggest complaint. The thumbstick on the control is simply not precise enough for the quick turns that need to be done at times in Asteroids, and the fire button being placed on the trigger makes for playing the game a quite tiring affair.

Really, I'm trying to keep this review short because it's an arcade game, so let me sum this up: This is a half-assed effort to revitalize a game that really didn't need a revitalization in the first place. The Deluxe mode is some okay graphics pasted on top of the basic game, and no real addition to the game is ever made that would make it recommendable to people other than enormous asteroid fans. (lol FANS OF MO0 AMIRITE)



tl;dr version:
Asteroids wasn't all that great of a game to begin with.
The deluxe version slaps on a half-assed coat of paint and calls it a day.
Controls aren't that great, and the super speed mode makes that even more obvious.
Achievements are damn near impossible to complete 100%.
Unless you REALLY like Asteroids, you won't really get your $5 worth.

Jam it back in, in the dark.