Game Review: Asteroids Deluxe

Asteroids Deluxe is another Game Room release for Windows Phone 7, bringing a classic game back to life on our touchscreen devices.

Overall Score: 2/5

This is one of the most disappointing Xbox Live game titles yet. The visuals are bad enough to impact the gameplay severely, which ruins the experience. The game has some awesome elements like a cross-platform leaderboard, but when the gameplay isn’t there, the rest of the game falls apart.

Gameplay: 2/5

First, I have to say that the controls work perfectly. I’m not sure why so many people complained about the controls in the Marketplace reviews. The control layout is the standard setup for Asteroid touchscreen games, and they work exactly like they should. However, while the developers nailed the controls, they failed in other aspects. In this case, the visuals of the game actually hurt the gameplay, since the resolution is way too tiny for a mobile phone’s screen. You can barely tell which way your ship is pointing and you can hardly tell where incoming bullets are since they all are so tiny. This becomes more of an issue when you have a smaller screen. Also, the game’s virtual screen doesn’t have any border lines, so you can’t tell where the screen ends. Instead, it randomly cuts off, and then your ship or the asteroids will appear on the opposite side. This yet again hurts the gameplay, especially since that element of the Asteroids game is a large aspect of the game. It does have a satisfying medal system that rewards you for getting higher scores, but the game has too many negatives to receive a higher score.

Presentation: 2/5

The visuals look pretty polished, but as I said earlier, they are incredibly small and have enough issues that they actually hurt the gameplay. The music and sound effects, however, feel arcade inspired and goes along great with the game.

Lasting Value: 3/5

Some credit must be given to the game’s thorough online leaderboards, which let you view only your friends’ scores or all of the global scores, view scores from the PC, Xbox 360, and WP7 version of the game, and watch the gameplay replays of the high scores. However, since the game isn’t very enjoyable to play due to its many issues, you probably won’t want to play Asteroids Deluxe for too long.

Title: Game Room: Asteroids Deluxe
Price: $2.99
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios