Asteroids Deluxe

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Asteroids Deluxe is an arcade game released in March of 1980 by Atari Inc., and the sequel to Asteroids.

Pilot a spaceship equipped with shields and auto-fire as you blast through level after level of rotating asteroids. UFOs and multi-segmented Killer Satellites take chase, searching for an opportunity to destroy your ship.

It is practically the same as Asteroids, but with a few changes:

  • The graphics are light blue instead of white, and the player's ship is redesigned. Also, the asteroids rotate, and the game has a three dimensional background of hurtling asteroids and spacecraft.
  • Instead of hyperspace, the player has a shield that is activated by pressing a button. The shield will gradually wear out during use, however.
  • There is a new enemy: the killer satellite. When shot once, it will split into three smaller craft that will home into the player. When these are shot, they will split up again into two arrow-shaped ships that also home into the player. When the arrow-shaped ships are shot, they will be destroyed.
  • The saucers have a pattern to their shots. Large saucers fire three shots in a row at asteroids and the fourth at the player. Small saucers fire two shots in a row at the player, and the third at an asteroid. This was designed to prevent the "lurking" strategy used by many experienced players of the original Asteroids.

Tropes used in Asteroids Deluxe include: