Blasteroids

Copyright : Image Works | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Once again it?s condition critical as the world is put on state of red alert when aliens decide they can kick human butt - wrong. You are sent in to stop them, armoured with a light weight, heavy power spaceship (last seen in Asteroids) you must destroy the asteroids heading towards earth while stopping any alien threat along the way.
Blasteroids was a non-stop action shoot-em-up in the arcade but how well has it been ported?

Graphics

In the original arcade we were treated to some highly colourful backgrounds and superly rendered asteroids and alien space craft, the Amstrad CPC conversion does manage to keep most of this in-tact but there are a few differences. The colours have been greatly reduced and not that well replaced considering the number of colours available on the CPC, backgrounds are still well drawn given this limitation and it certainly looks a whole lot better than the original Asteroids game. Everything you expect to see from the original arcade is all present and correct but if like me you played the game on a green screen monitor all those years ago, don?t expect to see a great improvement on your emulator.

Sound

Sound is superb, the introduction music alone is well and truly worth listening to as Image Works once again do the CPC proud, it?s not only the C64 that can produce great music you know. In-game effects are a little limited but we would much rather have this than nothing at all, a great conversion indeedy.

Gameplay

The game plays superbly on the CPC as nothing from the arcade has been removed, all the action and shooting you expect to see and hear is present and correct. It?s not without it?s problems though, for a start you can only re-define the keys when the game first loads (make a mistake on your joystick input and have to re-load!) and the game also manages to slow down when the screen becomes hectic.
Blasteroids was the first £2.99 title I ever purchased for the CPC 464 and I have never regretted that choice, this is one for all shoot-em-up fans and it easily surpasses the Atari Classic.