Astrosmash & Shark! Shark! Gen 2 Gameplays

[IntellivisionDude]

 

[+SoulBuster]

Looks like fun

[Carl Mueller Jr]

Wow, the parallax scrolling on Astrosmash! is extremely distracting and unnecessary. In general, the graphics are a bit obnoxious in my opinion. No way would I play this game over the original.

[LidLikesIntellivision]

I like Meteor Shower for Atari 7800. It's a homebrew inspired by Astrosmash.

 

Atari 2600 has Go Fish! But I didn't play this one.

I guess both homebrews are available for download.

[Akito01]

Wow, the parallax scrolling on Astrosmash! is extremely distracting and unnecessary. In general, the graphics are a bit obnoxious in my opinion. No way would I play this game over the original.

 

You're right on both counts. For a short while when I first got the game, I thought the scrolling background meant that the gamefield was wider than a single screen, but it isn't.

 

I think I remarked elsewhere that this falls more towards Space Invaders Revolution than Space Invaders Extreme on the scale of retro-remakes. Part of the reason it looks so unappealing is that it doesn't stick to a consistent visual style; it uses pixel art, hand-drawn Flash-style art, and simple polygons. It also doesn't reflect some of the more interesting game mechanics from the original, making it even more dull to play despite the few new enemies they introduce. As if to add insult to injury, there is no GameRoom style leaderboard action -it doesn't even save your high scores!

[catsfolly]

Wow, the parallax scrolling on Astrosmash! is extremely distracting and unnecessary. In general, the graphics are a bit obnoxious in my opinion. No way would I play this game over the original.

 

I dunno. I like parallax scrolling in general. But, from watching the video, it looks like sometimes the closest layer of mountains is almost the same color as the player's ship, which might make it hard to find the ship sometimes. If they had kept the mountains as darker colors, I wouldn't have a problem with the parallax scrolling...

 

It is tricky to make a "modern, retro-feeling" version of a classic game.

 

If the graphics and gameplay are unchanged from the original, then players wonder "What's the point? I can just play the original!"

 

On the other hand, if the design is changed too much, the classic feel is lost.

 

These games look like a good effort to find a balance between the classic feel and more modern capabilities. If I had an Xbox 360, I would check them out...

[JasonlikesINTV]

The fireworks after you destroy a meteor could be really distracting at higher speeds/levels. I don't mind the mountain scrolling, though.