Astervoid 2000 Review

For the past few years we have been moving towards gamers playing games alone in their room on a pc with their friends. The idea of couch co-op gaming has been slowly fading away with PC’s becoming more and more affordable and many preferring to play with their friends online rather than in the same room together. Astervoid 2000 brings back the joyous times of playing games together with your friends with fast-paced action, great music, and good times on the couch.

Astervoid 2000 is the kind of title where you will get the most enjoyment out of it by playing with four friends. It has many similar aspects to the Classic Asteroids games, however it's so much more at the same time. The game has the feel of a retro arcade game, and manages to keep itself separate from the genre by adding in reflexive gameplay that is very fast paced with nonstop action.

Players can select from a variety of ships, all of which have the same stats, no special abilities or overpowered ships in this game folks! The single player is set in a survival game mode that feels a lot like Asteroids but adds in some twists that do a good job of making it unique. In single player the player is tasked with fighting wave after wave of enemies while avoiding asteroids flying around the map. The game controls feel very tight allowing you to have a great amount of control flying around the many obstacles that will obstruct you.

Speaking of obstacles, the game does a very good job of making things very unpredictable, from random sized asteroids to different types that range from explosive, to frozen. These allow for players to maneuver around their opponent and try to blow up an asteroid that will give them an advantage. It gives players the option of either using the asteroids as a weapon or as protection from the enemy line of fire.

The ships in Astervoid 2000 have the ability to either fire shots in rapid succession or a charge shot that will do more damage. The rapid shots are fairly weak, however they do hold one advantage over using the charged shot for every engagement. The charged shot actually propels your ship away from the direction you are facing when the shot is released. This adds a very unique twist to the game because you can choose to use charged shots on the offensive or to quickly maneuver away from a rapidly approaching asteroid or ship.

The soundtrack has a very nostalgic sound to it that will certainly take you back to the retro arcade days. While I did enjoy it, after a few hours it started to wear on me a bit, but I doubt most people will play the game past a few hours per session so it shouldn’t be much of a bother.

My one complaint with the game is that it is one of those games in which its only really fun when you have a group of people around that are willing to play. The solo playability is rather lacking, however that shouldn’t stop you from checking this game out

Overall I enjoyed my time playing Astervoid 2000, the gameplay is simple but fun, the controls feel tight, the graphics are a perfect reminder of why simple is sometimes better. Some people will play this and wish that the game had more features, or perhaps more depth to the ship’s abilities, however my counter argument for that is over complicating the game will just ruin what is already an enjoyable experience. What makes Astervoid 2000 such a great game is the simplicity. Rather than worrying about which ship is the most overpowered, the game comes down to raw skills and quick reflexes. At the moment Astervoid 2000 is around $10 on Steam and if you are looking for a good couch party game I would highly recommend checking it out.