I'd say it was more the fact the machines were new and shiny that sold me on them more than anything. Always had that itch when something new drops, and then go on to mentally justify it by telling myself the games are gonna be amazing. When yer wee you're just happy to get it.

afgavinstan wrote:

I'd say it was more the fact the machines were new and shiny that sold me on them more than anything.  

That’s fair. I still get the hype every time a new gen comes around.

What about games that are love letters to other games?

I’m thinking Hollow Knight’s reverence to Metroid and Dark Souls, Dragon Ball FighterZ frame perfect tribute to DBZ, Smash Brothers send up of Nintendo’s canon, and ZeroRanger’s effusive praise of the history of shmups.

It’s ok, it’s incredibly hard to recommend as it is basically impossible to finish after a point unless you’re actually good at shmups.

Ripped from my previous online gushing over this game. No 2 in my perfects list

Asteroids Deluxe - Arcade

Asteroids in the arcade was an unforgiving tyrant of a game that suffered no fools. The crisp, monochrome look of it made it feel grown up and the needle sharp graphics and forboding powerful bass sound effects were quite an experience at the time. Looking back now it was a technical tour de force with its physics, particle effects and high resolution graphics (1024 x 768) – in 1979.

Dropping a 10p piece into an Asteroids cabinet was a thrilling but short lived affair due to the difficulty and for a teen on a budget that was something that resulted in me limiting my plays and admiring skilful players instead (an arcade pleasure that youtube playthroughs are a sorry substitute for).

Asteroids at home on the 2600 was a different story. Of course it was a compromised port of the game, but Atari’s craftsmanship was such that it played quite like the original. It had the same feeling and needed the same basic skills. The home game was nowhere near as difficult, but the extra game variations that were included added to the playability. I had that 2600 for 5 or 6 years and Asteroids was a stalwart of gaming sessions alone , with my brother, and during marathons when cousins stayed over and we were booted upstairs to the bedroom and the black and white TV.

Original Asteroids is a candidate as one of the very few perfect games. It remains impervious to attempts at improving the formula. Emulated asteroids just doesn’t cut it either - they prove to be pale anemic copies of the original experience. It needs that vector display with its glowing bullets. The 2600 version was followed up by an excellent update on the 7800 – and it remains the best home console version of asteroids. Clumsy updates such as that attempted by Activision on the Playstation 1 were dull and formulaic, tinkering with the purity of the original and breaking it.

Asteroids is also one of those rare games were no two levels are the same. It’s like when you break the pack of reds in snooker – it allows for apparently infinite variety. Start breaking up rocks in asteroids and the randomness and physics rules combine to create a constantly changing playfield as you interact with it. So right from level 1 you are in the thick of gameplay – no early repetitive engagements to endure. Asteroids does have one niggle though. Lurking. This was a tactic whereby players could sit with one rock left on the screen and keep taking out the ufos the game would keep generating. This wrinkle is accompanied by the luck factor of hyperspace. That panic button you could hit to warp to a random location was an enjoyable feature but it reduced the amount of skill in the game.

Along comes the sequel - Asteroids Deluxe. This replaced the hyperspace with a finite shield. You have several seconds worth of shield use per life and it indicates how much is left by its brightness when activated. It will absorb bullets from ufos and if you hit a rock your ship with bounce off it in a beautifully consistent way, allowing you to survive some seemingly impossible situations.

Deluxe also adds a new enemy – killer satellites. These benign snowflakes drift onto the screen one at a time toward the end of a wave. Their arrival is announced by an audio fanfare but they just float around until hit by your shots when they break up into a barrage of rather nasty homing missiles; the design and behaviour of which seems to have inspired enemy design in the modern twin stick shooter, Geometry Wars.

Deluxe’s ufos are smarter, more accurate and aggressive too. While taking potshots at your ship will they also take out any stray rocks at the end of a wave and hit the snowflake to release the homing missiles thus creating some stressful end of wave situations. Ufos can also shoot aimed wrap around shots so you really need to keep on your toes. You are glad to get a wave over to face the relative safety of a full screen of asteroids.

This sequel adds just enough variation and complexity to the beautiful pure concept of the original without breaking it. To me it is a perfect game.

The Deluxe cabinet features a reflected display. Instead of looking directly at the screen as you do in original Asteroids you are looking at a reflection of it in a 2 way mirror, projected over a painted background. The image looks as if it is floating above the painted background and it is a highly effective and novel effect. The old 5 digit score that rolls over at 100,000 on Asteroids is replaced with a 6 figure score in Deluxe and the top 3 scores are retained even when powered off.

Today the only way to experience the game is via an original cabinet and I am lucky enough to enjoy the circumstances within which I can own such a thing. An expensive indulgence for one game perhaps but for me well worth it. The rock busting is truly satisfying, as is the "screen clearing" nature of the game. Mastering the controls of your ship enables highly accurate movement which adds to the sense of satisfaction as my skills grow. I've been playing this game in different ways for over 30 years and I can't ever see me tiring of it.

Top stuff Davy, especially in owning the cabinet. I don’t think anyone else will be able to top that dedication to a game.

Great read Davy, Asteroids was nails. Respect.

You make that sound like a problem.

Just get rid of your dining table and eat dinner off the pinball one. Job done.

I think Portal may be a game for me.

Orange Box is cheap as chips now on 360 or would I be better just getting Portal 2?

davyK wrote:

I think Portal may be a game for me.

Orange Box is cheap as chips now on 360 or would I be better just getting Portal 2?

I’d absolutely get both.

I believe that SG posted in the Portal 2 thread that the original is free on Steam (or rather, the Still Alive version of the original which is a little longer).

It’s a pretty short game, so probably worth playing on PC for free if you can even if you aren’t generally a fan of playing on PC.

I'd be surprised if you don't at least like them Davy. Both in the top ten games from that gen. I would say 'imo', but there's no need - it's a fact.

That Asteroids cab looks great, proper work of art

Also yeah get Orange Box, it's bound to be available cheap as chips somewhere. As SG confirms, the modding community would have had a field day with a game like Portal

davyK wrote:

Might go PC. It's rather ancient now and creaks a bit but manages manic shmups in MAME so worth a go if it's free.

It's not free, just some extra levels. Portal runs fine on pretty much anything.

Orange Box for 360 is only a few quid in CEX. That a good version?