Asteroids

One of the favorite classic arcade games was known as Asteroids. It is also now a computer game It was one of the most popular and influential games of the late seventies and eighties. The first game was released in 1979. It is a vector-based video arcade game which was released by Atari, Inc. The game was constructed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg and up to two players can play it at the same time. The first computer based game was Spacewar and Asteroids is said to have been inspired by this game. A stand up version of the game was produced in 1977 and was called Space Wars. Asteroid is just a one player version of Space Wars. It features a spaceship from the original and the asteroids are the main opponents in the game. Asteroids is known as the best selling game of all time. The game was so popular that many arcade owners had to change out the coin boxes for larger ones because the original boxes in them would not hold all of the coins being put into them. Lyle Rains conceived the game and Ed Logg designed it. Ed programmed the game so the players could put their initials in a list of high scores. This soon became a standard feature in all arcade games. Atari was in the process of producing a game called Lunar Lander but the demand was so great for the Asteroids game that they had to stop production of it and they put the asteroids game in the cabinets intended for the Lunar Landing game.

The object of the Asteroids game was to score as many points as you could by destroying the asteroids and flying saucers. The spaceship could rotate left or right and fire shots forward and also move forward. If the ship is not thrusting forward, it will stop. The spaceship can also be sent into hyberspace which will cause it to disappear and reappear at different locations on the screen. There is always a risk here and the reappearance of the spaceship may be on top of an asteroid or it may self destruct. Each time the asteroids and flying saucers are all destroyed, another set of large ones will appear and this will continue until all of the lives are used up. Most of the original arcade games cost 25 cents to play them and the owners of the games cashed in on the profits. It did not take long to pay for the machine if the game was placed in a busy traffic area where kids (and grown-ups) congregated or passed through.