The Atari Report - 5200 Edition - Episode 2 - Asteroids

[BIGHMW]

In this episode, mentally disabled musician and entertainer Ray Jackson introduces and reviews what was supposed to be the original pack-in game for the Atari 5200 SuperSystem, the timeless classic, "Asteroids". The game was eventually replaced by Super Breakout as the pack-in game for it, and then later, by Pac-Man, and the release of Asteroids, was eventually scrubbed by Atari altogether despite the fact that the retail box of Asteroids was seen on promotional pamphlets originally included with 5200 cartridges.

 

 

 

 

Asteroids.bin Meteorites.bin

[Curt Vendel]

Asteroids was scrapped because of the non-centering stick.  If you have ever played the prototype 5200 Asteroids, it is not always fun to play because of the controls.   Atari really should've immediately jumped on making a digital stick and a centering analog.  I never understood the lack of urgency is fixing the blatant issue, but instead all of these attempted "band aid" fixes of thicker boots instead of directly releasing a digital stick.   Damned shame too... the 5200 games were all great, better than Colecovisions.   It was the controllers lack of centering that really hurt the overall system.   However for games like Star Raiders, Missile Command, Centipede, Space Dungeon and Robotron... the sticks were actually superb.

 

[David Alexander]

Thank you. Video shared with the Atari 5200 Podcast Listeners.