Arcade Game: Astro Blaster (1981 Sega/Gremlin)

[@SyntheToonz]

This was a frustratingly hard favorite back in the day. I liked the voice synthesis. Back then it was remarkable.

[@chrisnizer]

I grew up during the arcade golden era and your channel inspired me to take the plunge back into the games I loved in the arcades. Picked up a Super RetroCade in 2018 and built a control panel with 2 Sanwa JLF-8YT joysticks (4-way and an 8-way) and buttons. Having a great time with it all, thanks for the videos and especially the inspiration my friend!

[@scringe1]

I played this in 1981 when it first came out. I thought I was something special since the game talked to me lol. I was 12. Good times.

[@tron1984galxian]

Same here ,good times

[@raggersragnarsson6255]

Thank you for uploading this. This game was the loudest game in my local arcade. It was so difficult and I was terrible at it so I usually watched others play it. The entire cab used to vibrate as the sound was so loud. Such good memories of this game.

[@GordonDempster]

This was the first video game I ever played back in May 1981 and forty-two years later, still playing as much as I can. 😁

[@davo6041]

Loved it playing in Skegness chucking the 10 p in slot for hours on end

[@theseus27]

Cheat mode activated just before the aliens went through your ship at 4:51 However it's still one of my favourite classic arcade games. Just to hear the sound effects amazes me, and after spending so many coins on this game I managed to complete 4 rounds at least. Rock hard but so addictive :)

[@Scripture-Man]

Great game! The robotic speech adds so much atmosphere.

[@danielr4640]

It does I agree

[@willdraper8384]

A tremendous game. One of the first that talked a lot. The guy here must have given his last ship loads of lives as he collided many times. Best I ever did was sector 5 and you cannot believe the frustration felt, having got so far, for your last of 3 ships, getting blown up. Spent many hours in arcades with my bored wife at the side of me, rocking the pram with my son in. God bless her, we’re still together and my son’s 43, but I put her through hours of boredom😂

[@pookie67]

This game and the two BERZERK games had the coolest robot voice/vocoder sounds

[@Diskoboy1974]

Love this game. Basically the arcade version of Megamania from the Atari 2600.

[@danaralston6688]

Great game, always a challenge...a lot of secret bonuses in Astro Blaster. There were some obvious clues that the person playing this wasn't good at all. 1) Mashing the fire button. Anyone who played enough knew you didn't do that. The laser temp thing made it challenging by having the player think about when and where to shoot. 2) Not always using warp in the wave before the meteors. If you hit warp right at the start of the wave, you can pick off every one of them before they cross the screen and get the secret bonus. If you're a good shot and don't miss at all during that wave, you get that secret bonus as well. 3) Moving during docking. There is always just enough time to get the ship centered after the meteors. If done right, you could do a "no-hands" or "paint scraper" docking and get the secret bonus. I always went for the "paint scraper" as it was 1500 points, but the "no-hands" was only 1000 points. The most obvious clue, though, was having cheat setting for invulnerability turned on in MAME.

[@Rickstartattooman]

1981 I remember this Arcade Machine when I was 15 on holiday with my family at what used to be Butlin's Filey.

[@tynao2029]

In Sega's 2001 Dreamcast game Shenmue, an Astro Blaster cabinet is located in the YOU Arcade in Dobuita, but it has an "out of order" label on it and is not playable. The current world record high score is held by Gus Pappas with 299,100 points scored on Astro Blaster on November 20, 1982 in Napa, California, USA.

[@m1serfreed477]

Many thanks for this, I've been looking all over and could only find videos with either no sound, just effects, or just speech. This has both, well done. Last time I tried this game under MAME Emulation, there was no speech as the emulator did not handle it as far as I know. Thanks again

[@oldclassicgame]

+M1S†eR FREE D The game does have sound with effects and speech in MAME. You need mame sample files to get sound in mame.

[@m1serfreed477]

Thanks. I have got CoinOps 7 installed now on my Xbox and speech and effects are in there in this game. Happy Days

[@georgeshelton6281]

It's good to see the old school VGs once again.

[@roomark2]

Took me right back Brilliant times 😊

[@TheCoolProfessor]

At the arcade I used to play at they had the volume cranked up on this game so loud you could hear it from halfway across the parking lot!

[@armandoaguilar7640]

This was my game! Great memories!

[@jaypostromboli-jpgamertv-457]

It was fun seeing seeing this game in the arcades in Yakuza 0, even though you couldn’t play it.

[@alexanderteuman7273]

It was one of the first arcarde game which speak german:"spiel astroblaster"; 1981 i was with my father santa monica beach in this playhouse and some man told me, you can put one dime into that and got a credit. Thank you for the tip.

[@noahpartic7586]

This takes me back to playing such in my Native MD & 1 of the few arcade games that could talk. 😌Gaming nostalgia HO🥳.

[@tonysan07]

I love this game...

[@deljohn]

This was a particular favorite of mine....

[@danielr4640]

I remember this arcade very well. It came out same year as regular Pac Man

[@cemomaher1650]

I remember, this game was so hard. If you play without cheating, nobody couldn't pass sector 4

[@timfuller4073]

Wow, thanks for the flashback.

[@mrpickles6968]

I played this game last night at retrodome arcade in Barnsley U.K. quite good for 1980 with the voice over

[@BaarBear]

Is it me or do the movement patterns of the opponents remind one of the movement patters in the opponents in the game Megamania?

[@BarbecueinItUpGood]

The TG&Y store near our house had this game in their lobby!

[@neilloughran4437]

Was gonna say you're a heck of a player but then noticed all the shots hitting you plus the engagement of warp drive all the time... Best I ever did was getting to level 4 once... this is an incredibly hard game..

[@pweddy1]

Not sure I ever saw this in the Arcade. I only remember hearing the Gorf arcade game mentioning Astro Blaster. Seems like it inspired Megamania on the 2600?

[@johnalexander7490]

Just to make clear: It is NOT synthesized speech. It's digitally reproduced real voice sample, stored in the many ROMs. GREAT GAME!! Had the best sounds/speech in my opinion. Hard to get much past wave 5.

[@TomKaren94]

the only video game i actually liked in the 80s. completed the entire game once (as i remember there were 12 levels) and never played again. shoot invaders left to right a row at a time, and without missing for point bonuses.

[@danielmedina1136]

I once docked 3 times at the movie theater lobby lakewood ca haha!

[@danielgrace7887]

Those brown bullets are hard to see against the black background, crafty. Though at least there's a sound when the enemies fire at you.

[@FukiMakai]

"Fighter pellet sneeze in insector words."

[@jamiebilich4084]

this game reminds me of megamania

[@chrisstory563]

this game somewhat reminds me of megamania from activision

[@HayTatsuko]

I was thinking the same thing. I'm pretty sure this was the inspiration for Megamania; the similarity is even mentioned in the Wikipedia article on Megamania. Patterns are very similar between the games.

[@noahpartic7586]

I was 9yrs o look when this game was released & played it then back in my native DMV. Very few arcades could talk at that time & this was 1 of them. W/O Cheats, only 1 strong in The Force could begin to beat this. That wasn't me😭. Still worth it though. Thanks for preserving this cool gaming nostalgia👍.

[@simonebernacchia5724]

@@noahpartic7586 There was a time where arcade games were in the DMV?? o_O [ i moved in US in my 30s so this is unknown to me] [EDIT - ok, i think DMV is not what i think it is there]

[@noahpartic7586]

@@simonebernacchia5724 DMV=DC Maryland Virginia Metropolitan Area. Google it.

[@thewingedavenger1007]

Activision copied almost all their games from Sega, Atari and others. Megamania was Astro Blaster, Enduro was Turbo, Kaboom was Avalanche, Freeway was Frogger... and trust me, I could go on and on.

[@konstantinospapadopoulos-n4x]

and I got the world record on this game :) 299K. Completed all 7 sectors and can't remember how many more sectors I completed after that. The version I played only allowed you to gain 1 extra ship and you actually got destroyed when hit by bullets and fuel actually would go dry.

[@labnine3362]

F’ing love this game 🎉

[@georgeshelton6281]

It was during the time when George Plimpton use to be the Mattel Electronics Intellivision spokesperson.

[@Gregor2000252]

Un vaisseau indestructible...😳🧐

[@pleasedontfeedtheai2341]

Smoked a fatty and dropped many quarters in this favorite..back in the day

[@parkpunk2]

So difficult with the overheating laser and limited fuel.

[@georgeshelton6281]

So what if the Mattel Electronics Intellivision game console controls, were much harder to handle.

[@cubecubesson6779]

After sugar this was my second addiction. My poor nan got terrorised for 10p's

[@renatotrigueiro8601]

100% (WRITE IN ASSEMBLY) BEAUTIFUL GAME!

[@matthewjeffery6481]

I always ran out of fuel half way through sector 3

[@johnalexander7490]

PS .. there are TWO different ROM sets for the game play. The initial release was deemed too hard (the turquoise-colored models), the newer ones with the Darker Blue coloring have the easier ROM set. :)

[@StuartKReilly]

B17 Baaawwwwmber

[@no2embish]

You would have been out in sector 2 if it wasn’t for your cheat code for invincibility

[@WowplayerMe]

Activision's Megamania is a sort of clone of this game.

[@georgeshelton6281]

I also miss Mattel Electronics Intellivision; this company was the strongest adversary even to the Atari 5200.

[@sillypuppy5940]

I used to love playing this game. But I never understood why someone would build a ship with a laser that kept overheating.

[@m1serfreed477]

Its a shame you had to run a cheat, but I guess the video would not have lasted very long otherwise. LoL

[@howardshapiro9294]

I'd like to watch the game without the cheap you can't die

[@danielr4640]

This game is sorta like Galga

[@Jaypeapolaris]

Did you mean mega mania

[@monos70]

M-M-M-Megamania!!!!!

[@noelpower1526]

Como siempre tienen oportunidad de hacer videos largos , pero no tienen idea de como se juega y menos este gran juego muy mal

[@domgamesentretenimentos]

Clone Megamania for Atari 2600.

[@Jaypeapolaris]

This actually came before Megamania

[@The_Wandering_Nerd]

Wow, Activision's Megamania doesn't even hide the fact it's a ripoff of this game.

[@RobertGeez]

Nearly as good as Gorf.

[@sinbad799]

Megamania

[@tonysan07]

so weak you are boy,with so many cheats and you can't hit it :))) i finished this game long time ago..

[@sasamilenovic7188]

CHEATER!

[@MarkFaust]

I live in Papillion Nebraska just outside of Omaha. Anyone that can repair my game please message me.