Asteroids DC+ - Atari 2600

Price:
$25.00

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Now you can enjoy Asteroids with the 2600 driving controllers, giving you more precise (and analog) control over your ship's turning motion. Here are the changes from the original Atari version by Thomas Jentzsch:

  • You can use a joystick (left port) or driving controller (right port)
  • Pseudo "vector graphics" similar to the arcade version
  • Reserve ships are displayed at the top of the screen
  • The old reserve ships number now shows the current player number
  • Last, but not least, Thomas made the game a little bit more challenging.
Original Game Asteroids
Hacked By Thomas Jentzsch
Number of Players 2
Controller Joystick, Driving Controller
Cartridge Size 8K
Label Design Dale Crum
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Nathan Strum on 07/11/2009 04:19am
Asteroids DC+ is a hack of Asteroids that uses the Indy 500 driving controller to rotate the spaceship, rather than just the left/right directions on a joystick. The gameplay has also been made slightly harder, and the sprites have been changed to look more like vector graphics. The graphics changes look pretty good, but seem to have caused a problem with collision detection where your shots will occasionally pass straight through some of the smaller asteroids. Also, a black and white mode would have been a nice option, to better resemble the arcade graphics.

There were no instructions included, so I guess it's presumed you either already own Asteroids, or can look up the manual online. But you'll have to also look up the hack's webpage to discover that the driving controller needs to be plugged into the right joystick port. Once you've done that, the driving controller spins the ship very quickly and accurately. The problem is, if you expect to be able to actually play the game beyond just spinning and firing, you'll need to combine the driving controller with some sort of multi-button controller (similar to the arcade game) in order to have enough buttons to thrust, fire and activate hyperspace (or shields). Do that, and you'll end up with something that works very well - like the arcade versions of Omega Race or Cosmic Chasm. However, if you go to the trouble of buying or building a five-button controller, you might as well just use that since the driving controller doesn't really improve on it much. If you don't already own a copy of Asteroids, you might consider buying Asteroids DC+, but be prepared to buy or build an additional controller (in addition to getting a driving controller) to really make it work. But if you already own Asteroids, save your money, get yourself a five button controller, and skip this edition.
laurent dziubas on 03/05/2009 03:22pm
Everybody knows and loves Asteroids, with this one, I discovered a new way to play it, what a pleasure.
More precise, more natural, it is great.It is worth the price asked for it and furthermore some graphics and playability changes have been made.

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