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4,664 machines: 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Manufacturers | Top 100 Videogames | Visit The International Arcade Museum for 17961 coin-operated listings. |
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Manufacturer:
Sega/Gremlin Year: 1981 Class: Wide Release Genre: Shooter Type: Videogame Monitor:
Number of Simultaneous Players: 1 Maximum number of Players: 2 Gameplay: Alternating Control Panel Layout: Single Player Controls:
Sound: Amplified Mono (one channel) |
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Astro Blaster DescriptionA multi-wave colour raster shoot-em-up. Features include speech, a warp button that slows enemies, docking (to refuel) and secret bonuses. Two items must be monitored throughout the game; the laser temperature since overheating renders ship unable to fire and a fuel gauge that, when depleted, ends the entire game (even if you have ships remaining).Know anything more about this game? Cabinet InformationThe game has light blue artwork depicting a space ship. There is a clear perspex screen in front of the actual monitor.The second cabinet photo is of the (seemingly) rare teal/aqua color scheme in a white cabinet. Cheats, Tricks and BugsThere are 25 secret bonuses. Some are: destroying entire alien wave before it cycles, having all of your shots hit aliens in a wave (no misses) and docking with mother ship without moving your ship (dead center is 1000 bonus, on the edge *paint-scraper* is 1500 bonus).ConversionThis game was based upon Sega's "G-80 Card Cage" system. The majority of G-80 games were vector, but the handful of raster G-80 games can be changed with a simple card swap inside the G-80 cage and some minor control panel re-wiring.Game IntroductionThe game harbours many secret bonuses, some of which were mentioned in Tom Hershfield's book Mastering the VideoGames (Bantam circa 1983), but others appear to be more elusive. The speech adds a great deal to the gameplay as it acts as your on-board computer.The two-player mode is slightly unusual in that the players alternate between rounds rather than between ships (a round is four or more waves plus a meteor/fireball wave plus a docking sequence). Hence, if player one does not survive round one then player two ends up playing alone! Game PlayYou control a ship at bottom of screen that shoots through waves of aliens, maneuvers through an asteroid belt and then docks with mother ship. Firing shots too fast causes the laser to overheat and become unoperational until it cools down. The warp button causes aliens and alien fire to slow down for timed duration. Fuel counts down while playing and if it runs out the game is over.MiscellaneousThere are a couple of versions of this game in existence. The original ROM version had a different attract screen that did not contain any instructions. The waves were longer and the player was given the option of "buying-in" an extra number of ships, although the player was not allowed to buy extra fuel -- the main difficulty of the game.This early release of Astro Blaster was practically imposisble to play because it was so difficult. The game was later modified to include instructions in the attract mode and the waves were shortened to reduce the overall difficulty. Even this later version is very challenging to the casual player and many seasoned players cannot even clear four out of the eight levels. To help players progress further, there exists a ROM hack that slows down fuel consumption and laser overheating. CAPS/VAPS Arcade CensusThere are 6,492 members of the Classic Arcade Preservation Society / Video Arcade Preservation Society, 3,731 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 61,187 machines (3,630 unique titles).Common - There are 24 known instances of this machine owned by Astro Blaster collectors. Of these, 21 of them are original dedicated machines, and 3 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired. This game ranks a 16 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most commonly seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records. Wanted - There are 3 VAPS members currently looking for Astro Blaster. There is one VAPS member looking for a Astro Blaster circuit board set. This game ranks a 11 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most commonly seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records. For Sale - There are 2 VAPS members with Astro Blaster machines for sale. VAPS members are totally independent of VAPS and the International Arcade Museum, and we are unable to recommend, endorce, or guarantee any person or company selling games or game parts.
TechnicalThere are no DIP switches to set difficulty. The game uses Gremlin's G-80 System that was based upon the Z80A CPU. The video board implements the VIC IC that can display eight shades of red, eight shades of green and four of blue. The game's extensive speech is powered by a 8035 CPU.Manuals
Foto-Finder™
eBay ListingsClick to search eBay for Astro Blaster Videogame machines and related items.Click to search eBay for machines and parts made by Sega/Gremlin. Check out the IAM/KLOV report of the hottest coin-op machines on eBay, powered by Ace.com.
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