Quite possibly my favourite game from the original Intellivision was Astrosmash. A blend of gameplay that you’d have found in Space Invaders and Asteroids, the game saw you take on waves of asteroids and try to blow them to smithereens before they collided with the Earth.
This new version, which is also just called Astrosmash was perhaps the game I looked forward to most when I saw the previews of the trapped in limbo Intellivision Amico console. Players may still be waiting for that console to see the light of day, and with the new release of Amico Home, it seems we’re finally an all important step closer to that becoming a reality.
In the game you control a space ship which moves across the bottom of the playing area just above ground level. The game then throws loads of asteroids at you, and in later levels you also get invaders from space who will actively shoot at you. It’s your job to shoot as many or all of them if possible, and doing so will earn you points to raise your score. One of the unique features of this and the original Astrosmash game is that if you fail to blow up any asteroids before they hit the Earth, the game will actually deduct points from your high score for every asteroid missed.
To progress through the games ten stages you need to reach a certain score that will get you to the next level. This means that levels can be fairly quick, or I guess take potentially forever to complete. If you always dodge the asteroids and let them hit the Earth your score will go down and you could perpetually keep scoring points but never reach the point in which you complete the level.
The various stages include showing mountains, and pyramids and temples in the background. Mostly these don’t change how anything in the game is played, but it was quite fun to see a level with a volcano in the background that would continually erupt and when this happened a burst of lava filled rocks would spray down on the level. Likewise some ice based comets will rain down on the mountain themed stage.
The game isn’t super taxing to beat if you’re smart with your tactics. You will find there are a few power ups you can get that will either give you a shield, or change you weapon. This includes doubling your rate of fire and giving you a blue laser beam to easily break through the falling rocks. The game also lets you switch on auto-fire mode and for me this is the only way that I’d consider playing it on Amico Home. The game is challenging when you just have your slow missiles that you can fire, and feels like it should always give you a more rapid fire rate to keep it more fun.
Using the Amico Home Controller app worked well, but truthfully I found a much better solution for this game. I have a Backbone controller for my Android phone and when attached I found that I could control the movement of the ship with the analogue stick. This made playing the game a lot easier and more fun as a result. The Backbone wouldn’t work with the fire buttons, but with auto-fire on this didn’t feel like it mattered much anyway.
At the time of writing, if you want to get Astrosmash, you have a few options. The version that I am reviewing is the Intellivision Amico Home version, and I’m playing it through a combination of my Amazon Fire tablet and my android phone with the Backbone controller attached. I’ll get more into how to get set up with Amico in my Beta period review of Amico Home, which I’ll do in another video, so do look out for that later on. The bad news is that this initial launch of Amico Home is just on Android, and although I’m playing it on my Amazon Fire Tablet, I had to jump through a few hoops to install the Google Play store to download it. It’s not too taxing, but still are hoops to jump through if you have a Fire. iOS users are likewise going to have to wait a little while.
Some good news is that even if you don’t have a couple of Android devices around to play it, you can still get it on other platforms like the Switch, Xbox and on Steam. It doesn’t appear you can get it on PlayStation at the time of writing. And for clarity, yes I did say a couple of Android devices are required to play Amico Home. One to act as the console and another to act as the controller. The fact this game is playable on Xbox and other platforms shows you should just be able to play it with a single screen, but I guess this is Intellivision trying to maintain the promise of two screen gaming that the Amico promised.
I think this is a fun game, and like the other launch Amico Home game Missile Command, it’s something that will be fun to return to here and there as it has very pick up and play gameplay. Much like Missile Command, and what will be the same as other Amico games like Shark Shark, if you’ve put in a few hours with the game you’re likely to have seen everything that it has to offer, but this is because these are a modern interpretation of games from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Just like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, these launch games give you a little to see, but the real fun comes from trying to better your score.
I’m glad I waited to get Astrosmash on the Amico rather than a version for another console, as this feels good to explore on the new Amico Home platform. It’s a fun game, and is a great new version of the classic game that fans of the original Astrosmash are sure to get a kick out of playing.
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