Game Review: Phantoms of the Asteroid (Commodore 64, Mastertronic)

Phantoms of the Asteroid – what is in a name?  Well, confusingly, the game has three different names, with the one on the title screen (Phantoms of the Asteroid) confirmed by the game’s programmer, Martin Ellis, to be the correct one, especially when you play the game and read the plot line on the back of the cassette inlay.  The cassette inlay’s front and the cassette itself shows Phantom of the Asteroids (hinting at one phantom) and the loading screen shows Phantom of the Asteroid.  Understandable, then, that there was some confusion.

Reading the full instructions makes more sense as to what you will need to do.  You have thirty-six uranium cubes to collect on the asteroid you have landed on, dodging the phantoms, or shooting them along the way.  There are also various colours of force field that you should not touch unless you would like instant death, and these are coloured cyan, purple, and green.  You also need to contend with a dwindling energy and oxygen supply as well as a fuel supply for your jet pack, which can be handily topped up by locating the relevant supplies and standing on them to top up – so knowing where these are located, as you explore, becomes very handy indeed.

Atmospheric Asteroid

One thing that hits you immediately when the game loads is a very impressive Rob Hubbard title theme, that really does have plenty of grittiness and fast pace to it, and sets the scene well.  This title theme was later used in a later Mastertronic loading game called Load ‘n’ Play (which was prior to Invade-a-Load) thus further enhancing its reputation as a great theme.  Once you start the game, there is a single channel in-game theme which is more doom laden and atmospheric as you explore the asteroid, and this allows the sound effects to be fully functional.  The asteroid itself is mainly shades of grey, with landscape, flat sections with bricks, spikes sticking out, and lots of those force fields.

Can You Feel the Force?

The force fields can be passed with careful control, as the green ones will go off and then back on again with various degrees of speed.  To get past ones of any colour, you also need to find a little pad of the same colour and touching that deactivates the field – allowing you to get further.  The instant death from touching just one of these force fields will lead to some frustration, and in hindsight, it may have been better to just lose energy the moment you are touching them instead, but at a quicker rate depending on the colour of the force field (so if green is more severe, drain energy a little quicker.)  Hitting a spike is also instant death too, so keep your eyes on those especially when hovering downwards.   The pads of different colours than the force fields (such as yellow) also act as teleports which can be handy to get you around the asteroid.

Your character can use the jet pack (which is where the fuel comes in handy) to hover over parts of the landscape or head up the map as needed.  This should be used sensibly, and if there is a flat surface or gentle descent, walk instead.  The phantoms themselves come at you with regular intervals, and home in on you too.  You can shoot most of them before they touch you and drain energy, but it is well worth maintaining some speed as you head around so that you have time to turn and shoot them if they are coming at you from behind the direction you are facing.

Save the Game and Save Face

One good touch is the ability to save your game at any time.  You can pause the game with the space bar and then use the S key to save your position to cassette.  This may be particularly useful if you have managed to get some of the uranium cubes and want to carry on later – or on another load.  You can also press fire to start the game at the last checkpoint you saved, and L to load the game back in (if you reset the game), but space itself will start the game from the start.  Some of those options at least allow for progress to be made and ease the frustrating instant death from the force fields.

The status display shows your fuel, energy and oxygen remaining as well as the score and high score, and the grid to the bottom right of this status display shows you which uranium cubes that you have picked up on the asteroid – and becomes a grid of colour as you get further.  This can also be a handy reference to avoid having to track too much back and forward as you explore around, although mapping the sections, inevitably, is your best bet to avoid repetition. When you do collect all thirty-six uranium cubes, you have five minutes to make your escape.  This adds an extra frantic layer to the game, and the teleport pad is just below a section of lots of coloured blocks.

Loss of Life

When you do lose your energy or hit a force field or spike, a small explosion shows with a game over theme playing from Rob Hubbard.  Unfortunately, you cannot skip this game over section and need to wait for the tune to finish, which can be a little frustrating.  There is also an additional piece of music that plays if you happen to complete the game, which is a nice touch.  The atmosphere the somewhat moodiness of the asteroid really does come across when playing too, with the soundtrack matching the action as you strive to progress.

Final Thoughts

Phantoms of the Asteroid is for me at least a so near and yet so far game.  There is the excellent Rob Hubbard soundtrack, and graphics and playability are perfectly functional and do their job well.  What spoils it for me a little is the force fields, fire, and spikes for instant death, which is unforgiving for a game of its type, although this can be remediated with the save game feature, which not that many games used back then.  Those of you who love to map a game out and work out the entire route will get much more mileage from this game, and the sense of achievement to complete this game, I imagine, would be very positive.

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