Asteroids
A black screen, a few white lines, and a universe trying to crush you with rocks from every side. Asteroids is one of the purest and most influential arcade games in history, and on the Atari 7800 it delivers the true battle for survival amid a field of flying boulders.
You control a small triangular ship that you rotate, propel with engine thrust, and use to shoot at the surrounding asteroids. Each hit breaks a large rock into smaller, faster pieces, so the initial relief quickly turns into a desperate dance among the fragments. The ship is subject to inertia, so even stopping takes practice. Occasionally an enemy UFO joins in, firing at you and forcing you to maneuver constantly.
The original was created by Atari and reached arcades in 1979. It became one of the biggest hits of the golden age of arcades and used so-called vector graphics, which drew sharp white lines directly with the screen's beam. The game was so popular that it is rumored operators had to collect coins from the machines more often because the boxes were overflowing.
Asteroids also wrote itself into gaming history with the mechanic of entering initials into a high-score table, which took competitiveness to a new level. The principle of destroying large objects into smaller ones and the physics of inertial movement became an inspiration for countless later titles, and the game is among the most frequently ported arcades ever.
The Atari 7800 conversion replaces the vector lines with raster graphics, but it preserves the essence of the game, namely the briskness, purity, and that peculiar tense elegance of movement in space. For fans of the classic, it's a welcome home rendition of a legend.
Why play: An immortal arcade classic about survival in a field of asteroids, whose inertial physics and pure gameplay principle still entertain today.
Game 2 of 37 for Atari 7800
The same title elsewhere (1)
The Atari arcade original ran on a genuine vector monitor that drew thin, crisp lines for the ship and rocks directly with the electron beam, so the image stayed clean regardless of resolution. The Atari 2600 has no vector display — its picture is built from the blocky raster shapes typical of the TIA chip, so ships and rocks look coarser and less elegant. The console can also only show a limited number of objects at once, so asteroid density and pacing had to be toned down compared to the arcade. Sound is simple on both sides, but the synthesized explosions and the rising engine pulse from the arcade board carry more atmosphere. For the true vector cleanliness, the arcade version is where to go.
