First off, if you find you have even a passing interest in BLASTEROIDS ($1.00) before reading this review, by all means, go and download DeadKings. BLASTEROIDS is a featured minigame there (along with Checkers & Breakout), and DeadKings is an excellent game that throws in everything but the castle sink. You’ll pay the same price, and you get about 575%¹ more game. No need to thank me.

For everyone else still here reading this, BLASTEROIDS is a stand-alone title that is… you guessed it, an Asteroids clone. It plays exactly how you remember it, and the vector graphics are as tidy (albeit simplistic) today as they were in the halcyon days of 1980s arcades. You control a triangle-shaped ship, and you are able to spin 360 degrees and thrust forward. Large asteroids lumber into view, which you then shoot, breaking them into smaller asteroids, avoiding the resulting pieces while continuing to destroy them all. Then you advance to the next round, and pad your score some more.

There are some added perks to the game, including skin-saving bombs that will destroy all tiny asteroids on-screen, or a shield that can absorb collision damage (so long as you don’t thrust straight into a big asteroid, it will take a few hits). You can also earn extra ships / bombs at different point plateaus.

While the gameplay undoubtedly was cutting edge for its time, and ate up thousands of quarters in said arcades, its brand of action isn’t nearly as addictive in modern times. That’s not Asteroids‘ fault, mind you, we’ve simply moved on to bigger experiences.  Exacerbating that problem here is the fact that BLASTEROIDS doesn’t have a online leaderboard, or even record high scores for that matter. You could argue that the game itself is the ‘reward’, but again, modern palettes may demand something more substantial.

There’s not much else to say about the game that a flash version can’t do just the same, and nothing left to sort, save for which of the three camps you fall into. Either you have a nostalgic itch that needs scratching ( …I did. I hadn’t played Asteroids in years before this), you’ve never played Asteroids before², or you have no interest in revisiting the umpteenth homage to a verified classic.

Whatever group you identify with, BLASTEROIDS doesn’t judge, just merely exists as a reminder that Asteroids existed before it. That reminder will cost you a dollar³.