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Tonight at a glance

Platforms
Arcade · Apple][
Mode
Single player · Multiplayer
Violence
Moderate

The story

Asteroids is an arcade space shooter released in November 1979. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The objective of the game is to destroy both, asteroids and saucers. The triangular ship can rotate left and right, fire shots straight forward, and thrust forward. Once the ship begins moving in a direction, it will continue in that direction for a time without player intervention unless the player applies thrust in a different direction. The ship eventually comes to a stop when not thrusting. The player can also send the ship into hyperspace, causing it to disappear and reappear in a random location on the screen, at the risk of self-destructing or appearing on top of an asteroid.

  • Action
  • Science fiction
  • shoot 'em up
  • death
  • spaceship
  • space battle
  • teleportation
  • high score
  • vector graphics
  • explosion

The look

A few frames, chosen rather than collected.

Production

Players
73 / 100 · 84 players
Critics
90 / 100 · 1 critic
Developer
Atari
Publisher
Atari, Adventure International, Sega, Taito

If this stayed with you

Then these are the nearest things Cue holds — chosen for what they share with it, not for what happens to be popular.