Astro Blaster is an arcade game released in 1981. It has been inspirational in the creation of home games such as Threshold and Megamania.
Gameplay[ | ]
You control a spaceship that moves across the bottom of the screen blasting away at several waves of alien attackers, all with various appearances and various forms of movements. Your mission is to destroy them, make it safely through a meteor storm, and then dock safely with the mothership to refuel before you run out of either ships or fuel. One useful weapon you have on hand is the warp button, which causes enemy movement to slow down for about 10 seconds, after which it resumes movement at full speed; this gives you a window of opportunity to knock more of them out than you do at regular speed. Unfortunately, the warp feature can only be used one time for each ship until it is destroyed or you have already docked with the mothership. One thing to watch for is your laser temperature gauge: fire too many times to make it reach the full end of the red zone and you will temporarily lose your ability to fire. Throughout the game there are various point bonuses that you can discover.