Ode to Asteroids
Lately, in my rather pathetically narrow windows of free time, I sometimes try to get a few moments in with Oblivion, or X-Men Legends II. But because of the scope of these games, snatching a few minutes here and there is neither particularly rewarding or fruitful. Especially with Oblivion, it takes time to sync up with the alternate world and become productive with your alter-ego, the whole point of the game. Playing for just fifteen minutes is more frustrating than fun.
So you know what I find myself constantly returning to? One of the simplest computer games ever created, and still one of the best: Asteroids.
Asteroids is one of the great pillars of video games, one of the archetypes on which all subsequent games must build their own strengths. Released in 1979, with sequels in 1980, Asteroids showed how addictively fun a game with the most apparently simplistic of concepts could be. For me, Asteroids is one of the “perfect few”.
Take a look at the screenshot above for a second (and yes, it’s actually Asteroids Deluxe — more on that in a sec). Look at how almost pathetically simplistic it is. While Oblivion threatens to overheat my GPU chip with millions of texels, live lighting effects, complex physics calculations, and butterflies, Asteroids is nothing more than a handful of vector lines arranged into simplistic geometric shapes. So simplistic, in fact, as to be abstract. I mean, look at that screenshot: your spacecraft, composed of about eight straight lines, is being menaced by a handful of hollow arrowheads. Ooh. I’m wetting myself with terror.
How can a twenty-seven year old game with monochromatic graphics and extremely limited gameplay compete for my attention with a modern, cutting-edge game like Oblivion, where I can explore a whole virtual world? That’s the question I pondered this morning as I sat down to write this. And the answer, I think, lies in the deceptive promise of technology.
Some years ago, I was browsing in a bookstore when I overheard two of the store’s employees discussing e-books, which at the time were a fresh new buzzword. Essentially they assumed that the advent of e-books meant the death of the printed book. In a matter of years, they assumed, the printed book would be dead, bookstores would be a relic of the past, and we would all be reading on our computer screens.
Flash-forward to now, and, while e-books — or downloadable books — are still in existence (I’ve never used them) they’ve hardly outmoded the printed book world.
I’ve heard similar proclamations about video games wiping out the traditional board game or pen-and-paper role-playing game. While video games are certainly a vastly more lucrative industry, I’m happy to report that the printed game world is alive and well.
The answer these examples reveal is that greater technology does not necessarily produce a greater quality experience. A super-duper high-tech 3D game which sucks to play is still a shitty game. A game with rudimentary sounds and graphics which is a delight to play is still a kick-ass game.
Don’t get me wrong: Oblivion fucking rules. It’s the best CRPG since Baldur’s Gate II and perhaps my favorite CRPG since Ultima 7. And comparing Oblivion to Asteroids is like comparing a Dodge Charger to a Ferrari Enzo. They’re just different beasts. It’s the very fact that Oblivion is so fabulous that makes Asteroids’ enduring interest so intriguing.
Full disclosure: most of the time I prefer playing the much less-successful sequel to Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, which altered a handful of features from the original, including replacing the “teleport” button with the more-useful “shield” button. And those arrowhead villains (new to the sequel) in the screenshot are known as Killer Saucers, which start as a clump, and then break off into fragments which attempt to ram into your ship. The asteroids also spin as they career across the screen, which somehow renders them more impressive.
And while we’re on the subject of cool effects, who doesn’t love the totally awesome zero-gravity movement of your ship, as you hit thrusters and then drift? It’s surprisingly realistic, and surprisingly effective in telegraphing a sense of floating in the cold, inky void of space.
To turn full-circle, and try to lend this post some kind of coherency, the reason I often wind up with Asteroids rather than Oblivion is that, suitable to its original destiny as a quarter-chomper in laundromats and pizza parlors the world over, Asteroids is just as entertaining if you play it for 30 seconds as 30 minutes. In this respect, it’s like high-concept screenwriting: it’s gotta have a compelling enough premise that the concept can be sold — and told — in a flash. Asteroids is incredibly simple to grasp — you just spin around and pulverize asteroids, trying to stay alive — and it sucks you in immediately to your role, and your goals. Arcade games of the Golden Age lived and died on how arresting were the simplest of gameplay concepts, and thanks to its insta-concept, Asteroids not just lived but flourished.
In the end, games work because of how compellingly they use the technology at hand to craft the best possible experience. Whether that’s with the gobsmacking complexity of Olbivion’s 3D virtual world or Asteroid’s simple-but-silky-smooth vectors, these games took what they had and delivered something awesome. It’s just that, with Asteroids, it fits very nicely indeed into a fifteen-minute coffee break. Oblivion demands more the scheduling of a seven-course meal.
Nearly thirty years on, it’s still just as satisfying to pound spinning hunks of rock into non-existence.
As a final note, according to Wikipedia, in November 1982 one Scott Safran achieved the still unbroken world record score in Asteroids, a staggering 41 million points.
My high score? I set it last week. 26 thousand points. I wrok.
Technorati Tags: Asteroids, arcade games
PS: my very first book, when i was 21, was the first complete handbook on videogames and (arcade) gamer culture. It was called DEFENDING THE GALAXY. Considered a classic (1981), I speak to the elegance and essential nature of Asteroids in there.
Anyway, if you like DROIDMAKER, you might enjoy the different (and often sophomoric, I admit) DTG.
June 8th, 2006 at 5:59 am