• Tag Archives Asteroids Deluxe
  • Asteroids Deluxe (Arcade)

    Asteroids Deluxe

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    Asteroids Deluxe in an arcade game released by Atari in 1981 as a sequel to the original Asteroids. An experienced player could employ strategies to extend play on the original Asteroids for a long time. This “sequel” was largely designed to prevent that. After all, you have to keep those quarters flowing.

    Asteroids Deluxe is significantly more difficult game than Asteroids for a couple of reasons. First, the hyperspace feature was replaced with a shield feature. Eventually, your shield would run out of energy. Also, a new enemy was added called the Killer Satellite. If you shot this enemy, it would break apart into multiple ships that would each home in on your location. Otherwise, Asteroids Deluxe looked and played very much like the original.

    Surprisingly, there were not many home ports of the Deluxe version. In 1987, six years after Asteroids Deluxe hit arcades, there was an Atari ST version. A few years earlier, in 1984, there was a release for the BBC Micro. It’s surprising to me that there wasn’t at least an Atari 7800 version given Atari’s habit of publishing old arcade games to death in those years. There was an unofficial hack released for the Atari 7800 in 2007 that added the new play features of Asteroids Deluxe among other things.

    There have also been no re-releases of Asteroids Deluxe that I am aware of. However, there were a couple of more sequels. Space Duel in 1982 and Blasteroids in 1987 were both follow-ups to Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe.