Review: Smasheroid - Get Your Rocks Off
by Allan Curtis
January 13, 2011
Overview
Smasheroid offers a twist on the classic game of Asteroids. In Asteroids you were a spaceship avoiding giant, ship crushing asteroids and UFOs. In Smasheroid you control the asteroids, determined to blow up the spaceships that have hunted them for so long. This is a imaginative idea and it's about time the asteroids got some payback!Features
Smasheroid features eye catching retro graphics, many game modes, and a snappy, flick based control system. It includes Gamecenter leaderboard integration and allows you to post your scores to Twitter.The Good
Smasheroid is a simple but fun game. You start off by picking a mode, at first only "Revenge" is available. In this mode you "play" as the asteroids and must destroy the spaceships before they blow the helpless rocks up. To do this you use a flick based control system, where you tap, hold and flick to send your rock on its crash course. You can also touch and hold a roid and drag it around directly, which is useful for manually avoiding lasers and taking out enemies. The controls work extremely well and a nice touch is that you can touch and hold anywhere on the screen and you'll control the nearest asteroid with your moments, rather than having to put your finger directly on it.
Enemies include the classic wedge shaped Asteroids ship, multi bullet firing larger ships and kamikaze ships that home in on you. While enemies start off shooting at random, as you survive longer, enemies get much smarter, rotating to fire at you no matter how fast you move and even preempting your movements. The idea of the game is to goad enemies into firing, or simply flanking them and smashing into their side, so you can destroy them without losing your asteroids. In a satisfying twist, humans sometimes fly out of destroyed ships and you can get bonus points by squishing them with your roids. Revenge is sweet indeed!
Smasheroid also includes other modes, such as Matchmaker, where you must drag same colored asteroids over each other to score and Loner, where you have only one asteroid that can survive multiple shots and you must keep destroying enemies to recover life.
Graphically Smasheroid looks nice and distinctly true to its source material and consists of old school wire frames. Retro explosion effects and grid lines add to the old school vibe. Smasheroid's understated, simple look makes it inviting for anyone to play.
Soundwise the game is as simple as it is graphically. Basic beeps and white noise wooshes accompany the actions and suit the feel of the game perfectly.
