Asteroids

There's no denying the fact that, when it comes to mobile games, we're in the middle of a bit of a late 1970s/early 1980s renaissance right now. Glu's take on Asteroids is just one of a slew of arcade remakes and re-imaginings that have made their way to mobile in the last year or two – Pac-Man, Breakout and others have all made appearances in various forms. The question is, why?

Some might think that these classics – very rarely reliant on intensive graphics or complicated plots – are fairly easy for developers to bring over to the mobile, offering up a lump of profit in quick time. In truth, however, it's more likely that the enduring popularity of such titles means that it'd be stupid not to bring them over, the simple nature of their play ensuring pretty much anyone can pick them up and have a crack.

Asteroids certainly falls into this category, but its simplicity certainly doesn't translate into guaranteed success. Almost three decades on, Atari's rock-busting bonanza remains largely identical in its new-found mobile form, albeit with a few modes added here and there and the odd optional graphical update thrown in for good measure.

For those not au fait with Atari hits of old, Asteroids charges you with doing just two things: moving and shooting. Taking control of a mini-spaceship, your job is to fly around shooting down asteroids and the odd flying saucer in order to secure points.

The asteroids themselves are initially bulky blighters, being broken down into smaller chunks every time you shoot them, until they finally disappear. You constantly have to be on your guard, as each asteroid flies off into a different direction when broken up, and it's imperative that you avoid contact – too many scuffles with space rock will result in your ship being blown to smithereens. Watching out for flying saucers is also a priority, as a blast or two from their guns will also turn you into space dust.

As well as firing at everything that moves, shifting your craft into a position of safety is also key, using the '2' key to move forward and the '4' and '6' keys to rotate left and right. Another risky strategy is to send your ship into 'hyperspace' via the '8' key, which causes it to disappear from one space and reappear in another (the risk being that you'll reappear in the middle of an asteroid), but it's a combination of these efforts that brings the most joy.

In that respect, nothing has changed, but there is the option to spice things up a little by changing the skin of the game. Modern simply changes the standard palette to a colourful semi-3D form, Virus charges you with shooting down viruses as a white blood cell and Techno gives the game an altogether more futuristic feel, not to mention additional modes. These include Power-up, where boxes scroll across the screen that, when activated, give you shields or added weaponry, as well as Techno's own mode where shooting down asteroids of the same colour successively awards you bonus points.

Despite all of these brilliant additions to the Asteroids formula it's the original mode – virtually untouched and nicely implemented on the mobile's elongated screen – that is still the big draw here. Unless our tastes have drastically changed since we all first had a blast on Asteroids all those decades ago, there's nothing here to suggest that the mobile's transition into an arcade Mecca won't run for some time yet.