A surge of nostalgia rolled through my body as the first key to the soundtrack dropped. I thought to my self, well so far so good. Needless to say my first impression of the game was a positive one. As I watched the intro disclaimer I thought, “wow these guys are preparing you for one hell of an experience.”
Astervoid 2000 is a top down arena shooter. To say this game has a classic feel is an understatement. The devs at Mad Capacity & LREVG took what seems to be two of the most classic video games of all time and mashed them up. When you take a second to look closely, you can see the game has a blend of the classic Atari tank game Combat, with a clash of Asteroids.
Astervoid 2000 puts you in a mini arena of carnage. You need to survive wave after wave of space fighters while dodging asteroids and other exploding objects. The game is quite challenging trying to get through the onslaught of ships. But in the end that’s all that you do. There is no campaign, so your single player experience is limited to survival mode. You survive to advance with no clear sign of an end.
Astervoid 2000 does have multiplayer. The game has a couch classic vibe to it. When you have company over, the game is very fun during a night of some drinks or just chilling. But then you only have deathmatch and team deathmatch, for up to four players. Don’t get me wrong, I love blasting my friends in tiny speeding ships, but the game only has so much variety for you. I feel that there could have been other game types. Or even a way for you and your group to do survival mode together. One of the other down sides is that the multiplayer is limited to local. It just makes me cringe every single time I see a ‘local only’ PC multiplayer game. Honestly, why even waste the time to make a multiplayer mode. The odds of a PC player having a get together that’s not a LAN party, or a LAN party in general, these days to play local co-op is slim to none. Let alone bust out four controllers or keyboards to play local PC co-op games. It’s just not gonna happen folks.
The game’s soundtrack is one of the few gems of this game. You are going to spend more time listening to the soundtrack than the meat of the game. The soundtrack is very well done and does put you in the mood to blast ships. It really does get you hyped.
The controls to this game are on point. They are very responsive and the simplicity is what does make the game very enjoyable, especially for noobs. In my opinion, all games similar to this one should be twin stick shooters. There are so many devs out there that make top down shooter games like this, but they always seem to stick with the mouse and key for input. This makes an easy and enjoyable game more difficult for the new comer. Like gamers that just made the jump to PC this gen. One of the many perks of having a PC are the many options and the simplicity of plugging in a controller and using it. Not just being limited to mouse and key.
Astervoid 2000 does the classic gaming genre right. The music, the art style, the feel of the gameplay, but with everything it does right, it does wrong as well. The multiplayer needs more modes; why make a multiplayer if there is only one mode and only local? Like I said earlier, I never understood local PC only options. This is a way of leaving your ship on a launch pad with no gas. Rather than make a local multiplayer, the devs could have focused on a small campaign. Or if they were dead set on the local couch multiplayer aspect they were going for. They could have had co-op survival mode. Something would have been better than nothing. They could have also added some power ups. This may rob them from the classic feel they are going for, but it adds a bit of spice to the repetition of the game.
The variety of in-game modes leaves the game feeling flat. Placing a low ceiling for the high replayability this game could have had. Unless you have parties all the time and extra controllers lying around; the only thing that’s going to keep you coming back after your first few hours is the soundtrack. The soundtrack is the saving grace for this game.
Overall, I’ve given this game a 7.3 out of 10
Astervoid 2000 isn’t horrible. Its fun and gets your heart pumping, for the first few moments, but then it gets stale. This game may have some better luck on console because the party factor is definitely here for this game. But because of the platform, local co-op only, and the limited game modes, Astervoid 2000 is stuck in a black hole of its own.
Astervoid 2000 is now available on Steam for:
USD$9.99
EUR€9.99
CAD$9.99
GBP£6.99
