Because I know TNL is overflowing with Asteroids fans.
My pick is Asteroids Deluxe. It's like the original but with a touch more variety to it. Blasteroids is cool but I think it lacks the charm of the older games.
Asteroids Deluxe blew me away, when I first saw it. Put in a quarter and the game blew me away quite literally, as I did'nt last past the second wave. I played it here and there, but I think I had more fun playing the original and when I play the Atari Classics, I always go to Asteroids first.
My personal relationship with it was when I attended UIC/Chicago, they were gracious enough to have a cabinet of it. Of course, I had to plug it in a few times, but that's OK. I think I topped out at 100K for scores.
The Gameworks at Schaumburg has a replica of the original, and I just don't find it as engaging as Deluxe.
Sleeve, I still definitely like Blasteroids but I think the vector graphics and simpler play mechanics of the old games work better. Even the maker of Blasteroids wasn't quite satisfied with it.
Trivia time: Blasteroids wasn't made by original Asteroids creator Ed Logg but by Ed Rotberg(creator of Battlezone and STUN Runner) after returning to Atari from Sente.
Originally posted by NeoZeedeater
Trivia time: Blasteroids wasn't made by original Asteroids creator Ed Logg but by Ed Rotberg(creator of Battlezone and STUN Runner) after returning to Atari from Sente.
Hey Neozeed, why not whip up a thread about Sente history and games. If anyone here can do it, its you
Anyways, I still enjoy the original Asteroids the best. However, The ultimate precursors to Asteroids, Computer Space and Space War, have a charm all of their own. They were even a bit more complex than Asteroids and later games...
After dissatisfaction at having to convert his game Battlezone into a military version for army consultants, Atari employee Ed Rotberg and a few others left the company in 1981 to form their own one called Videa.
Videa created a game called Gridlee in 1983 but their publisher Gottlieb decided against releasing it.
Videa soon became part of Nolan Bushnell's new company Sente. Bushnell had been prohibited to compete with his former company Atari for ten years due to termination contract. Those ten years were up and Bushnell was hoping Sente would become a major gaming force. It wasn't long before Sente was bought up by Bally's Midway. Most games were released under the name Bally Sente.
Gimme A Break(1985)
Mini Golf(1985)
Chicken Shift(1984) - A game where chickens are laying eggs and you have to make sure the eggs get to the bottom of the contraption safely by moving the pipes.
Goalie Ghost(1984)
Name That Tune(1986) - They made some other trivia games too.
Spiker(1986)
Snake Pit(1984) - Whip snakes.
Stompin'(1986) - Crush ants.
Snacks 'n Jaxson(1984) - This is weird shit. You have eat flying pieces of food by extending your neck while preventing a bouncing ball(your nose) from breaking the window behind you. I like it.
Resue Raider(1987) - A neat shooter. The movement and turret aiming were controlled separately.
Street Football(1985)
Toggle(1985)
Stocker was a series of racing games. It started out with an overhead 2d game but Night Stocker(1986) was a 3d game.
Their most famous game was the excellent one-on-one hockey game Hat Trick(1984) which had home ports on computers and the 7800.
Sente also brought over V-System's shooter Rabio Lepus(1987) to the West as Rabbit Punch.
I really liked the PC Engine version Rabio Lepus Special.
Midway ended up merging with Williams to become WMS which I believe stands for Williams/Midway/Sente.
Ed Rotberg returned to Atari to make games like Blasteroids, S.T.U.N. Runner and Shuuz. He also worked with Asteroids creator Ed Logg on Steel Talons. Ed Logg had an impressive history at Atari creating games like Centipede, Gauntlet, Xybots and the Tengen NES version of Tetris.
Ed Rotberg returned to Atari to make games like Blasteroids, S.T.U.N. Runner and Shuuz. He also worked with Asteroids creator Ed Logg on Steel Talons. Ed Logg had an impressive history at Atari creating games like Centipede, Gauntlet, Xybots and the Tengen NES version of Tetris.
Deluxe, just because I the own cabinet... well parts of it to be more specific. Me and two of my buddies found the machine at the side of the road on garbage day and took it home. After plugging it in and seeing that it didn't work we weren’t sure what to do with it. It was then that my (ex) best friend Scott came up with a brilliant idea! While the rest of us weren't around he smashed up the cabinet with a Sledge Hammer to see if he could figure out what was wrong with it. In the end he took off with bin that held all the quarters, my other friend took the ROM chips and I got the panel with all the buttons on it (as well as a lot of fire wood).
