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ThinkGeek's iCade gaming cabinet for iPad moves closer to reality
Since 2001, ThinkGeek has been compiling gag products for April Fool's Day. Some products are silly, some outrageous, and some are conceptually cool and show promise as a real product. The iCade gaming cabinet, one star of April Fool's 2010, falls into this latter category. The iCade is a retro gaming cabinet that hearkens back to the 80s and its arcade gaming craze. The table-top unit lets you mount your iPad as the display, while the cabinet itself includes a joystick, arcade buttons and Bluetooth to connect to your iPad. After a few copycat versions hit the scene, ThinkGeek realized there is genuine interest in such a product and is working with Atari and ION to bring this concept to fruition. Atari is planning to release iCade-friendly versions of its classic arcade games, like Asteroids. These games will run on the iPad, and the action will be controlled by the BT-connected joystick and gaming buttons. An API will also be released so that current game developers can create iCade-compatible versions of their games. The unit will start shipping April 2011 and will retail for US$99.99. Are any of you gamers out there interested in scooping one up when it becomes available? [Via the gadgeteer]
Blast the internet with 'Asteroids' applet
Andy writes to tell us his buddy has completed work on the new American Eagle site. No, we aren't directing you to seasonal Zelda jammies (would you wear those?) -- the update includes a "hidden" Asteroids mode! Just add "?mode=asteroids" to the end of any page url to crack this Easter egg open.
Android + Asteroids + multiplayer = Androideroids (video)
iPad Scrabble playable on your iPhone? Pretty neat. Desktop Asteroids playable on your Android smartphone? Rather more action-packed -- and a little less expensive to get into. Androideroids is a project of Grant Skinner and runs on Adobe's Air platform. It's an eight-player game hosted on a desktop, with each participant given a first-person smartphone view of the vast expanses of space and the hollow rocks scattered throughout it. Meanwhile, a desktop client displays an overhead perspective of the shenanigans, displaying everyone's life and score. Players can either shoot asteroids or each other, tapping on the screen to thrust and fire while tilting to turn. Honestly the move to first-person doesn't seem to have done anything to improve gameplay, but this is still one game of Asteroids we'd make room for in our games folder.
The hunt for killer asteroids is on with the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope
The Pan-STARRS 1 telescope was unveiled on the Hawaiian island of Maui in 2007, and in early 2009, the telescope went fully online and began producing some amazing images. Now, the telescope has a nightly from dusk 'til dawn routine -- and it's looking for asteroids and comets which could threaten Earth. The PS-1, as it's known, boasts a 1,400 megapixel (that's 1.4 gigapixels!) sensor and can photograph an area about 36 times the size of the Moon in one exposure and is expected to map about one sixth of the sky per month. There's a sample shot of what the telescope's photographed below, but hit up the coverage link for many more.
Game Room adds Asteroids, Time Pilot and more
Game Pack 004 is now available for Game Room, featuring seven new titles. The two standouts are Asteroids and Time Pilot, classics of the arcade days of yore. Also in the pack are a handful of Activision Atari 2600 games, including Stampede, Grand Prix and Demons to Diamonds. Rounding out the pack is the arcade game Space Duel and the Intellivision title Shark! Shark!. The pack itself is free, while individual games run 240 ($3) to 400 ($5) depending on the license. Xbox.com: Add Game Room Game Pack 004 to your Xbox 360 download queue
Twenty-eight-year-old Asteroids high score beaten
America gets a bum wrap sometimes, but you should keep something in mind. You should remember that America's the sort of country where a 41-year-old locksmith from Seattle can spend 58 hours of that most precious gift of life scoring 41,336,440 points in Asteroids to break a 28-year-old world record. We're not sure what that implies about this great land, but it implies it very, very hard. It's a staggering accomplishment Koku Gamer brings word of, and one that leaves us with just one question for John McAllister: We've waited two and a half days, would you please come help us get our keys out of our car now? Our dog looks very sleepy.
EVE Evolved: Graphical upgrades for EVE Online
Some time ago, I looked at the different graphical updates EVE Online has received over the years and what was to come. The ship graphics were renovated years ago with the Trinity expansion and much of the rest of the game was left looking dated in comparison. The Apocrypha expansion picked up on the upgrades where Trinity left off, with re-developments of asteroid graphics and most of the game's special effects. Future updates were planned, with promises of bringing new life to planets and everything else that hasn't been improved. With the Dominion expansion on the horizon, it now seems that those promises are being fulfilled. We've seen new planet graphics and even shiny new starfields on the test server but are there other parts of the game that could benefit more from a graphical overhaul?In this short opinion piece, I take a quick look at the graphical overhauls that are coming with the Dominion expansion and ask which other aspects of EVE's graphics are long overdue for an upgrade.
Are you sitting down? 'Asteroids' movie has a plot
You know that epic three-hundred page screenplay you've been polishing over the last decade for a film adaptation of Asteroids? Throw it away, because Universal has it nailed down. Speaking to IGN, producer Lornezo di Bonaventura said the upcoming film will focus on two brothers who must have "a seminal experience" to figure out their relationship against a backdrop of rocks in space. Riveting.Bonaventura -- who will soon help ruin your childhood with G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra -- added that his attraction to the Asteroids license was because it promises an action-packed affair with "some guys in spaceships blowing stuff up." Also, he thinks it tells moviegoers "that there's going to be this big thing in space." So, we can only assume that Universal Studios buys movie licenses by scanning a dictionary.[Via Shacknews]
'Asteroids' heading towards the big screen?
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal has won an all-out "bidding war" over the film rights to Atari's classic Asteroids video game. We're not entirely sure who all was involved in this "war," but the conflict couldn't possibly be prompted over the universal themes tackled by the story of the plucky little triangular spaceship and the asteroid field it inhabits. As the Reporter, um, reports: "As opposed to today's games, there is no story line or fancy world-building mythology." Michael Bay is rumored to be very interested in directing.[Via George Ruiz]
Universal wins 'bidding war' for Asteroids movie rights
[INTERIOR] [SPACE STATION SORBET VII]ENSIGN CAMEO: Sir! I'm picking up several signatures on my gamma pulse spectrum radar!GENERAL CONSENSUS: Is it an attack? Did the Radical Space Sect find us?ENSIGN CAMEO: No, sir, these objects are too small ... too listless and apathetic to be ships! It's like they have no particular trajectory ... they're completely unpredictable.GENERAL CONSENSUS: Dr. Diana Fhire! What do you make of this?DR. FHIRE: Hmm, I've never seen anything like this, possibly because I'm meant to be this film's gratuitous eye candy and thus possess highly suspect academic qualifications like Denise Richards did in that one Bond movie. Anyway, my tachyon scanner indicates that we are not dealing with biological matter. In fact, the substance seems ... no, that can't be!GENERAL CONSENSUS: What? What are we dealing with here?DR. FHIRE: Rocks. Big rocks. In space.GENERAL CONSENSUS: My god. Space rocks ... but how?DR. FHIRE: It's only a theory, but I believe coming into contact with these ... these ... "asteroids" could kill us severely. GENERAL CONSENSUS: How ... how many of them pose a threat?[CLOSE UP ON DR. FHIRE]DR. FHIRE: All of them, general.[CLOSER UP ON DR. FHIRE]DR. FHIRE. All. Of. Them.[INTERIOR] [ALARMS SOUND]GENERAL CONSENSUS: Ensign! Get me gruff-but-likable washout pilot Jack Plot. He's the only one that can fly the experimental Triangulon Mark V --DR. FHIRE: The Triangulon?! Are you crazy? That thing's still a prototype! It's not tested for --GENERAL CONSENSUS: We don't have a choice, Diana. I'm not getting my ass kicked by these roids! ASTEROIDS: THE MOVIEWritten by Matthew LopezProduced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura
Major graphics overhaul of EVE's asteroid belts in Apocrypha expansion
When EVE Online's Trinity expansion was deployed in 2007, it brought with it a drastic difference in graphical quality, but the Premium Graphics engine initially only rendered ships and space stations. Premium Graphics as of next month's expansion will complete CCP's across-the-board overhaul of the game's look. Among those numerous graphical enhancements coming to EVE Online in the forthcoming Apocrypha expansion is something that will come as good news to players who enjoy mining: new asteroid belts. EVE developer CCP VanishingPoint writes in his "Miners Rejoice!" dev blog, "The asteroids are getting a facelift. Better than that actually, the asteroids are now going to communicate their value through brilliant graphical treatments." His blog explains how Team Hot Rocks created the new asteroid and ice belts for Apocrypha. The days of seeing round, floating rocks in identical belt after belt are nearly over. The new asteroids will have unique looks for each type of ore they're comprised of. In addition, they'll be in the form of shards with many different meshes, and will typically appear to be shattered fragments of larger objects. If you're an industry-type and spend a fair amount of your EVE time mining, you'll definitely want to see CCP VanishingPoint's dev blog "Miners Rejoice!" and its explanation of what you'll get on March 10th in the Apocrypha expansion.
Joystiq Review: Evasive Space (WiiWare)
We've been telling everyone that Evasive Space is kind of like a shmup, without all of the sh-ing. Turns out, that's wrong. Evasive Space is like combining Operation and Asteroids.If you've had enough of text today, then feel free to watch our video review. It's injected with 100% videological goodness, courtesy of Joystiq (patent pending).%Gallery-37316%
Asteroids wristwatch one-ups the Pong-playing original
John Maushammer enjoyed his 15 minutes in the limelight from the creation of the Pong wristwatch, but as any true superstar will tell you, a quarter of an hour just isn't enough. The DIY Asteroids Watch is a real step above the aforementioned predecessor, with an inbuilt tilt sensor so the wearer can control the action by simply tilting their wrist. We'd gush about it more, but that'd just be doing ya wrong -- instead, we'll point you to the live action vid waiting just past the break.[Via NerdWithSwag]
New Jumpgate Evolution video shows off dogfighting
It's safe to say that there are a lot of sci-fi MMO fans out there who would appreciate a game that incorporates dogfighting into a space-based title. Jumpgate Evolution is shaping up to be that game, from what we've seen thus far of its combat. We've been following Jumpgate Evolution for a while now, and Massively's Kyle Horner recently interviewed NetDevil producer Hermann Peterscheck about the upcoming title. New video footage of the game, captured at PAX 2008, is now found at GameTrailers.The video shows off combat taking place within a massive asteroid belt. Have a look at the video below the cut, and let us know if you think Jumpgate Evolution seems to be your type of game.
Masteroids: Not as bad (or as painful) as you think!
Not many pleasant things come to mind when someone says a word like Masteroids, so it's hard to think of any reason why anyone would want to name their game that. As it turns out, the Masteroids title sort of makes sense for this homebrew multiplayer clone of Asteroids. Based on the classic Atari arcade game, Masteroids allows up to four players to jump into a game with their Wii remotes, Classic Controllers, or GameCube controllers. Settings are available to change the amount of lives each player starts with, the amount of bullets a player can fire, the amount of players, the game's difficulty, and whether team killing is allowed. We were initially skeptical about whether or not the Wii could handle Asteroids' next-gen arcade graphics, but that extra GameCube must've made it possible![Via GBAtemp]
Weekly Webcomic Wrapup looks up at the stars
Have you ever just looked up at the stars, trying to make your own constellations ... and suddenly everything becomes a star cluster of Pac-Man-related shapes? (Imave via The Librarianist) Here are our picks for the week's best game-related webcomics; voting after the break. Real Life Application (Sharcbate) Battle Fighter III: Hyper Edition (Truck Bearing Kibble) Starcraft Blues (Extra Life) p=mv (Digital Unrest) The Expected Result (Penny Arcade) Oh, you're choosing fire? (Super Effective) Options (CAD) Grand Theft Dinosaur (Dino Comics) Define Addiction (2P Start) It's DYN-O-MITE (Dueling Analogs) "I'd be less nervous" (A Softer World)
Freeverse's Neon Tango continues the shape shooter tradition
Freeverse has release a new arcade shooter for the Mac called Neon Tango, and upon first glance, it looks a lot like Geometry Wars (which I've played many, many times late into the night on my Xbox 360). But then again, Geometry Wars looks like Asteroids, which looks like Space War, and so on, all the way back, so the only thing that really matters here is how it plays; fun's fun. Freeverse brags that Neon Tango has "state of the art OpenGL graphics," a techno soundtrack put together by someone named "Digital Droo," and lots and lots of various shapes throughout 50 stages for you to shoot with your little ship avatar.The game is currently available as a trial download over on their website, or you can get the full version for $24.95. Looks like fun.
Asteroids collide with XBLA
Don't let the exciting headline above fool you, because there's not much to get excited about on XBLA this week. Barring a brief trip down nostalgia lane, this week's release of Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe -- even in one convenient package -- is hardly worth a second (or possibly first) glance. Frankly, the game hasn't stood the test of time, though old school fans may find something to like here. Also, the revamped Evolved version is nothing more than the same game with a new coat of pixels. There are no new powerups, no smart bombs, just some flashy new explosions. The explosions, by the way, obscure your vision, which actually makes the game harder. Don't let the allure of two games for the price of one fool you, because that's not what's on offer here.As a commenter points out, we forgot to mention the price. It's 400 MS Points.%Gallery-11024%
This Wednesday: Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe come to XBLA [update]
When the new releases were a bummer and the Virtual Console didn't offer much comfort, we were depressed. But now that we've seen what's coming to Xbox Live Arcade this week, we're just hurt. This Wednesday, you'll be able to download Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe at the bargain price of 400 points/$5/Unforgivably more than "Free." Oh no, not for both. 400 points a piece. Ummm, no. [Update: Major Nelson's now saying that it's 400 points for both.]We'll be honest, friends: We're starting to smell a conspiracy. Somebody out there wants you to skip playing games this week so you can get out and buy some games. Luckily, if you're anything like us, you're too broke to fall for their clever trap. Thank you, comically slim wallet.%Gallery-10919%
Asteroids slam into XBLA this Wednesday
We've just been informed that everyone's favorite space rock shooter Asteroids will be making its way to the Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday, November 28th. For 400 Microsoft points (and available to all Xbox Live regions) gamers will not only be treated to old-school Asteroids fun with re-worked HD graphics and purple backgrounds, but will also get to enjoy Asteroids Deluxe at no additional cost. That's two similar games for the price of 400, which we must say isn't all that bad. This Wednesday asteroids will fall, space will be conquered and purple galaxies will remain ... purple.
