Blasteroids Longplay (Arcade) [4K] [Expert Mode]

Game Info
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Developer: Atari Games
Publisher: Atari Games
Year of Release: 1987
Game Review & Impressions
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Atari's official sequel to its own arcade smash hit, Asteroids, builds on the core gameplay of its predecessors, but leveraged the power of hardware available the time to introduce numerous new features. The vector-based visuals of old have been replaced by pre-rendered 3D sprites and more traditional 2D pixel art work. The graphical style is certainly a welcome change, and while I don't think it's the most attractive game to come out of Atari, it's still pretty cool.
The objective of the game is pilot your craft through successive levels, destroying all asteroids present before moving on to the next sector. Completing all sectors in a galaxy will lead to a showdown with Mukor, an intergalactic monstrosity hell-bent on the destruction of Earth and all humankind. Your craft has a limited amount of energy, which decreases not only over time, but also when taking damage from enemies. Certain rocks release energy crystals which restore a small portion energy collected, and you also get a small boost when completing a level, but supplies are often scarce, so speed and precision are the order of the day.
Key to success is switching between the three different craft modes at the your disposal. Ship type can be changed on the fly, with each possessing varying degrees of speed, manoeuvrability and firepower. Knowing where and when to use each craft type becomes paramount to the player's success, switching to speed mode to boost away from danger, or maximising offensive power to clear fields of space rocks quickly.
As you can expect from an Atari game, the difficulty is off the charts. The official product manual states that the average player will last roughly 110 seconds per credit, and I can believe it. The "Easy" difficulty restricts the game to clearing two galaxies only, with successive difficulties requiring not only more galaxies to cleared, but also more sectors per galaxy.
Those who wish to face the ultimate challenge can tackle the "Expect Mode". Players must clear four galaxies as before, but three of these are focused around specific enemy types, such as "seeker" 'roids, which home in on you when shot.
Although several longplays and videos of the game exist on RUclips, they all cover the "Easy" difficulty. I decided to tackle expert mode because many of the games enemies and features only appear in the higher difficulties, and warping to special galaxies is exclusive to the expert mode.
If I'm being completely honest, the games Atari was turning out at this point felt a little lacklustre compared to those being published by Sega, Capcom, Taito, and the rest of the big Japanese coin-op manufacturers. Blasteroids isn't a bad game by any means, just one that doesn't excite me.
Information & Trivia
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Video Notes
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- Played on Expert difficulty
Related Longplays & Videos
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Chapters
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[@Unstoppabull]

Mukor you owe me about $125.75!!! Arcade gamers never forget!

[@oneloveinus]

I think I finally figured it out. I could remember the red ship and red and gray asteroids but that was it, it wasn't in the arcade very long....thank you!

[@ethelchip3620]

Pretty cool to see pre-rendered 3d sprites in 1987. Seems like that didn’t become popular until years later. Also respect that you played through on expert.

[@carlopepi]

Actually xevious had pre rendered enemies in 1982

[@Phishkisses]

Mukor - No Earth slime can destroy Mukor!
Sinistar -👁👄👁

[@RagingRowen]

Graphics are definitely ahead of their time, especially with how smooth the animation is. The 2D Mukor also looks pretty rad.

[@psychotheunsane7285]

I swear that Mukor later became the inspiration behind Koffing and Weezing.

[@originalbadboy32]

The asteroids themselves are rasterized from a 3d modeling application, they are way too good for any human to do.

[@deceiver444]

Definitely a superior looking game considering the time of its release.

[@ClassicDOOM]

Very impressive playthrough. Cool to get a look at some of the rarely seen aspects of the game. Cheers.

[@mrf19741]

Loved playing this game, but could never get the hang of the controls. Awesome gameplay!

[@jeremyfischer7856]

This game feels less like a late 80's arcade title and more like a mid 90's PC game.

[@ArttuTheCat]

I had this game on my Amiga 500.
One of the best arcade conversions,
I have ever played 😺👍🕹️.
I wish, i still have it on my Amiga 500 -
and also Commodore 64 😹🕹️.

[@AL82RetrogamingLongplays]

I had the C64 version - it wasn't great...

[@ArttuTheCat]

@@AL82RetrogamingLongplays Ouch 😹...
But at least, Ben Daglish composed an awesome music 😺👍.

[@deceiver444]

Blasteroids on the amiga was ok fornthe the time of its release but to call it on of the best arcade conversion sounds like an overstatement imho

[@ozymandias1758]

Is this played on an arcade circuit board? Or emulation? Because it's flawless. OP if you can see this, did you have access to a spinner type controller like the original machine used and where would I find one? Your deft mastery of the ship and close quarter maneuvering is a joy to watch.

[@jimluket]

Graphics are good, but music/SFX are aces!

[@RichieCavsRetrocade]

Yeah this always just sat in the arcade I went to. Never got any play I think because people saw it as Atari trying to do yet another version of Asteroids combined with like a piece of Sinistar with this Mukor guy you had to destroy. The gameplay ended up being different and kinda cool, but the villain Mukor and the voice they gave him didn't do the game any favors. The voice, screams and phrases for Sinistar were phenomenal, and that was from 1983! Blasteroids came out in 1987 and it sounds like they spent 37 cents on Mukor's voice 😂 The attract mode showed Mukor and it said, MUKOR RULES ALL UNIVERSES! - Who cares, Mukor! Suck it! - I think that's how people felt when they saw that 😁

[@hirschlord1]

Very nice . I just miss the adventure feeling . Maybe flying over an planet , find something new ?

[@user-xd6kx9eh7i]

今宵も完璧デゴザル😊

[@ozymandias1758]

If I were to play the version of the game available as an unlockable in Lego Dimensions.. where would I find the "spinner" type controller that was originally used in the arcade machine? That's the most authentic way to play it

[@Patrick2480]

Wow 1987 game but graphics look mid 90s to me. Also this game was involved with Atari/Tengen swapping Tetris rights with Mirrorsoft from the UK for the home console version.

[@charlesajones77]

12:00 Wow, Mukor's voice acting is quite possibly the worst I have ever heard. It sounds they pulled the janitor into the recording booth and told him: "Read these lines".

[@Cockatiel2007]

Mainly due to that being a text-to-speech chip and not actual voice acting. This particular crop of Atari games, on the JSA-1 and JSA-2 hardware systems, made a lot of use of speech-generator chips.

[@SilverHwk7]

I never knew Mukor talked.

[@karmikmike2878]

where can i find this to play for free online ....?

[@michaeldavis-wp1vi]

Hey Dude do you know about single-screen platform arcade games then arronmunroe does

[@MylstarElectronics]

Mukor vs. Sinistar | Who would win!?

[@RichieCavsRetrocade]

Sinistar all day!

[@00SuperHAN00]

Beware I live

[@copyrightstrike6910]

nice gameplay, but turn on collisions.
your shield never went down, making it easy.

[@chucks9999]

It is on, they take damage when colliding with objects/enemy fire. I do wonder whether it's TAS or not. Though possible, the execution on some maneuvers are astounding.

[@piero9881]

34690

[@jon.m.100]

NADA MAL