This is a port of the famous arcade game to Atari's 3rd programmable console - the 7800. The 7800 was strangled at birth by the ego of Jack Tramiel who refused to release it since he was gunning for Commodore in the home computer market. If only he had kept his eye on the ball instead of seeking revenge, Atari may have survived the onslaught from Nintendo in the 80s. Anyhow that's another story. The version I'm reviewing here is the PAL release which is built into the console. Power the 7800 up with no cartridge in the slot and you access this game.

Asteroids is in my all time top 5 games. Its non-linearity gives it infinite replay value and its pick up and play style and challenge is just the right side of frustrating. I played the arcade version a lot , but then got the 2600 port of this when I was a kid and , I am not exaggerating here, played this every day after school with my brother for a least a year (I still remember it - game 39). If ever a 2600 cartridge was in danger of wearing out it was my copy of 2600 Asteroids...so it was with great interest that I bought a 7800.

Graphics
These are obviously a departure from the vector-based graphics of the original. What we have is a raster based version of this game and it looks pretty good. As in the 2600 port , the asteroids are coloured - its a bit like shooting lumps of sorbet - but they are quite detailed - they have features such as craters and they spin; it is quite effective. The ship itself is just a triangle and its shape is compromised slightly by the resolution when you rotate it but it looks fine and you always know what way you are pointing. When you thrust there is a little effect at the back of the ship - it is quite stylised - just a bright coloured line representing the rocket thrust, but its effective and in keeping with the nice retro look of the title.

Your shots are very visible (as are those of the enemies) and the resolution of the screen doesn't present you with too many problems when trying to make the correct angle to hit something - which was a bit of a problem sometimes with the 2600 port. The enemy ships (mother ship and ufo) are small but detailed; there are little effects on them such as flashing lights and they look pretty good.

There is none of the flicker that was a feature of the 2600 game and in the later levels the 7800 really shows what it can do with hordes of rotating asteroids moving quickly around the screen with no slowdown.

The overall layout of the display is pleasing with hi-res (for the day!) score displays and a graphical life reserve display. The session high score is displayed too - all without cluttering the screen of what can be a quite busy game. You get a nice slick title screen too and a neat game / difficulty select screen.

Sound
The 7800 has been criticised for its sound capability, but its repetoire handles the requirements of this game well. Good shot sounds and great explosions are all that is required and that is what we get. There are the sounds of the enemy ships too and nice little spot effects for such as when you hyperspace or get an extra life. You also get the ryhtmic background thud that was in the original and the 2600 port, but , disappointingly the tempo doesn't increase as you get closer to the end of a sheet of asteroids (even the 2600 port has this).

You also get strange ambient effects in the game - odd little beeps and blips that add to the atmosphere and are nicely done.

Control
No problems here - I find the PAL console controllers (a bit like the NES controller) are not as comfortable as the 2600 controller - but you get a 2nd button and from what I've heard, they're better than the US release controllers, so I can't complain. I find I have to press the fire button a bit hard but it is consistent and once I get the feel for it I can shoot my way out of real sticky situations without any controller based problems. One button is used to fire, the other to hyperspace. You rotate with left and right on the responsive D-pad and press up on the D-pad to thrust. I find this a great control scheme and can move around the screen with great accuracy. There is no option to change the control setup, which is no surprise given the age of this title, and there is no real need to in a game with such a simple control scheme.

(Incidentally - the PAL controller also comes with a mini joystick that screws into the centre of the D-pad but I prefer not to use it. An over-zealous friend broke one of them anyhow!)

Gameplay
Faultless - this is probably the best home version of Asteroids out there - maybe arcade Asteroids Deluxe is a better game with its shield and killer satellites - but this is a brilliant port of the original game. Scoring is the same as the arcade , you get an extra life every 10,000 points, and it doesn't have any of the limitations of the 2600 port. That port had limited angular movement on the rocks and didn't split the medium sized ones when they were hit - no doubt a limitation of the hardware. This port has no such compromises. Indeed when played on expert level, some of the large asteroids split into three medium ones instead of two! This is a pretty tough game - even on the default level you are never comfortable, but on expert level you are quite often faced with 2 or 3 asteroids heading straight for you at the start of each wave. It is quite an intense game, but there is an easy option available too which results in less rock splitting and removes the enemy ships.

It isn't cheap though - when you lose a life you are placed in the centre of the screen as normal but are granted invincibility until you either press a button or are safe - so there are no complaints about unfair life replacement here.

There are plenty of options too. There are 4 difficulty levels for each game type and some nice 2 player games. There is the basic 1 player game and for 2 players there is the traditional "doubles" game - basically alternating turns , higher score wins. BUT, there are also 2 player simultaneous games - competitive and cooperative.

In competitive mode, both player's ships are on screen and have their own pool of lives and score. You score when you take your opponent out - so these games tend not to last too long!

Co-op mode sees both ships on screen again, but with a shared pool of lives and one score - both players contributing to it. These two modes are excellent and the presentation of them is really slick. For instance, in 2 player competitive mode when one player has lost all his/her lives, the game will only continue until the surviving player's score exceeds the opponent's - when the game will end and the winner announced - a nice touch.

The only downside of the gameplay options are the lack of variations that are offered by the 2600 port such as shields, ship flip, extra life score boundary etc.


Overall
Without going overboard about it, if I never bought a 7800 cartridge I really wouldn't mind - this game is so good that given I got the console for a reasonable price, I'm happy to have it as a dedicated Asteroids console. This is quite simply a great port of a great game and shames the tedious "update" this game recently got on PS1, published by Activision of all people! Highly recommended.