Multiplayer — especially online multiplayer — is such an important part of modern gaming that it’s almost hard to remember what it was like before it was around. mmoAsteroids seems to be attempting a little revisionist history on that front, and like the name suggests, provides a massively multiplayer online experience for the arcade classic Asteroids. It’s way more fun than it has any right to be.
mmoAsteroids is a project by Paul Firth, who has been working on the game for a while now. Currently, it’s in “pre-alpha” or “tech demo” state, meaning that you can play it, but there are still some pretty big pieces missing. For the time being, the game mostly consists of flying around in your little Asteroids-style ship, shooting other little Asteroids-style ships that are on the opposing team, shooting asteroids, or buddying up to operate a large mecha ship with a teammate.
Firth has big plans for the game’s future, and ultimately hopes it will have all kinds of missions and quests like modern day MMOs, except instead of MMORPG, it’ll be an mmoAsteroids. All that is a long way off, however, and for the time being, Firth is hoping to make some money so he can continue to develop the game.
That being the case, he’s selling custom avatars for mmoAsteroids players. Considering that the ships in mmoAsteroids are just floating triangles, custom skins might be a tough sell. Then again, anyone who’s going to shell out for a skin is probably equally interested in funding development as they are in the actual avatar.
You can give mmoAsteroids a shot right now. If it sounds like fun, and although there’s not a lot to the game, you’ll find that it’s surprisingly easy to get sucked into. Firth’s end-goal for the project seems fantastic, and the fact that this stripped down, basic version still manages to be amusing only speaks to the game’s overall potential. Get blastin’!
(via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
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