The Game: Your planet is under siege by an unending hail of asteroids, bombs, and space debris. Your simple mission? Blast all of this stuff, or dodge it. But you’re toast if a bomb hits the ground. (M Network [Mattel], 1982)
Memories: Not one of Mattel’s finest titles for the 2600, Astroblast is a loose adaptation of Astrosmash, a game originally released for Mattel’s Intellivision console. The graphics are clunky even compared to such bottom-of-the-barrel entries like Atari’s Pac-Man and Combat.
Astroblast was one of the Intellivision’s signature games, but somehow its compelling game play just didn’t quite translate the jump to Atari’s breadwinner console. There wasn’t exactly a surplus of slide-and-shoot games on the Intellivision, but on the VCS, Astrosmash was one among many of that genre.
Really, overall, a bit of a disappointment if you’re at all used to Astrosmash