Not to be confused with Astro Fighter, a 1979 arcade shoot 'em up by Data East.
Astro Blaster is a shoot 'em up arcade game released by Sega in 1981. The player controls a ship (bearing a resemblance to the Battlestar Galactica) which can fire and move left and right. The player must continuously monitor the onscreen temperature and fuel gauges; if the ship overheats by shooting too often, its weapon is disabled, and if it is depleted of fuel, the vessel itself explodes.
The player must battle through waves of enemies, which attack with varied formations and flight patterns. When a wave is destroyed, a new one appears. At the end of each sector, the player flies through an asteroid belt and can obtain extra fuel by shooting fireballs. After this, the mother ship is met, where the player docks and refuels for the next sector.
Astro Blaster had speech synthesis, a novel feature that was shared with Midway's contemporary arcade title Gorf, and had been pioneered a year earlier by Stern with Berzerk. Astro Blaster was also notable for rewarding secret bonuses for accomplishing certain things like shooting all enemies in a specific order or shooting all enemies without missing.
In Sega's 2001 Dreamcast epic Shenmue, an Astro Blaster cabinet can be seen in the YOU Arcade in Dobuita, but it has an "out of order" label on it and is not playable.
Notes[]
This game was an influence for Activision's Megamania game, which was released on several formats (Atari 2600, 5200, eight bit computers) in the 1980s.
Links[]
Several of its secrets can be seen in its Stage Select database entry.
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