Hi there!

The definite sequel to Asteroids certainly got ported to the C64 as well:

Once upon a time, making new games was the easiest job in the world. All you had to do then, was taking an already existing game and add as many extra weapons you could think of. Well, Atari overslept doing Breakanoid themselves, but they apparently got the wake-up call as witnessed in Blasteroids.

Blasteroids is basically more of almost everything, except fun. It sounds good in theory though: There's more defending units, more attacking units, more types of Asteroids, more weapons, there's a sector map and even a boss!

It is fun to play for a rather short while, but it seems some of the original magic has been lost, at least in the C64 conversion. The Asteroids I remember plays smoother and has preciser controls. Also, all the things added don't really seem to enhance the experience.

Music and SFX are rather inconspicuous and the graphics look very poor, especially when compared to the undisputed king of single screen C64 shmups, Mega Apocalypse. (But which other C64 game in the genre doesn't pale in comparison...)

There's one major thing that didn't change in the decade between Asteroids and Blasteroids: There's always yet another wave of Asteroids to blast, so after defeating the sector boss it'll just start all over again.

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another Atari arcade conversion in the form of "Vindicators", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,

Manuel