Reviewed: February 4, 1999
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Activision

Developer
Syrox

Released: November 13, 1998
Genre: Action
Players: 2
ESRB: Everyone

2
4
3
5
3.0

Supported Features:

This article told of great plans for making a 3D simulation based on the classic 2D shooter of the 80's, complete with engrossing story line and cockpit-based combat. I had recently finished Descent Freespace and had visions of blowing apart asteroids much like one of the early missions in that game. You can imagine my disappointment when I finally got my copy of Asteroids and saw that it was only a facelift of the original 2D version.

Remakes are great. Tempest X3 and Xevious 3D/G+ are two great examples of classic games being redone properly, but for a company who has already proven themselves with the amazing remake of Battlezone to wimp out and release something as lame as Asteroids is unforgivable. So with those rants out of the way, let's review the version of the game that did release.

"So what's new?" you ask. Well you now have more than asteroids to shoot at. There are four variations of asteroids, not including the Indestructible Asteroid, which you must simply avoid. The Crystal Asteroids are a nice twist in that if you don't blow up the smaller pieces fast enough they will start to grow back into bigger crystals. Another asteroid found on the later levels will actually absorb your firepower and send it right back at you. Space junk, Comets, and Alien Eggs are also tossed into these asteroid belts to liven things up.

Probably the only interesting innovation in this remake is the Power-Ups. You can now collect a variety of secondary weapons, shields, or even free ships by flying into the various colored buoys floating around on each level. Mines, Missiles, Lasers, Smartbombs and many other weapons are waiting to assist you in clearing each of the levels in this game. You can choose from three various craft, but their performance has little bearing on your success. It does however give the false illusion of greater depth of game play.

Of course with new weapons also comes new enemies and this new version has some real tough ones. While the original Asteroids had the small and big saucer, this game features no less than 12 enemy craft, and when any of them appear on the screen you had better hope you have lots of shield energy or lots of spare ships.

Aside from the Standard Saucer (the big slow ship), almost any of the other ships are virtually impossible to kill without losing at least one of your own ships. They almost always surprise you when they first enter and they always get off the first shot and it will always hit you if you are stationary. If you happen to see the red energy ball coming at you and can hit the shield button in time you may live long enough to return fire, but the computer clearly has the advantage in all ship to ship encounters.

I've managed to get far into the game with 6-9 lives only to have them all taken away by a single Super Saucer. Even worse are the Hex ships that break apart into smaller and harder-to-hit ships when you fire at them. Prepare for new levels of frustration when fighting anything that can fight back.

The background graphics are very nice with interesting animation and bright colors. Even so, you will be tired of looking at them after the 15th mission and will welcome the change in scenery. Each Zone is preceded with a verbal mission briefing and a short cut-scene. These between-Zone movies are excellent quality but rather short. I would say the designers probably spent a lot more time on the movies than the actual game itself. For those of you who would force yourself to finish this game just to see the movies - don't waste your time; they aren't worth your time or frustration.

While Asteroids features some high quality backgrounds and fancy textured graphics and bright flashy special effects, the basic game is just too "busy". There is so much eye-candy on the screen at any one time that you can't keep up. You will often die simply because you can't find your ship, or are facing the wrong direction, or a comet will explode into a pair of small rocks and shoot right at you with no chance of getting out of the way. So many ways to die and so few ships?

ActiVision did manage to stick the original Asteroids game on the same CD - no big feat since the code would probably fit inside a TI Scientific Calculator - and they claim to have "hidden" it inside the game. Well you won't have to look very hard. You can't help but unlock it when you destroy the "special" asteroid on level 4 or 5 of the first Zone. Since Classic Asteroids is probably the best thing on this CD they should have buried this "bone" much deeper in the main game. As it stands now, you have no real reason to play beyond the first Zone.