Shoes and Socks

Yesterday I ran across an article about a Lord of the Rings game for the 2600. It was allegedly completely coded, but not released before the great crash of ‘83. Now it’s rediscovered and downloadable. So I did. Alas, it wouldn’t work on the emulator I was using.

That’s not the point. The point is, I started playing the original 2600 Asteroids. I must’ve been nearly autistic as a third or fourth-grader, because that is one tedious game.

Okay, that’s not the point either. The point is, I got up from the Mac and stuck my head in the kid’s room, where he happened to be piloting some sort of Space Marine Airship through the skies of Halo:Reach (details fuzzy: factcheck needed). So I pretty quickly went from “8-bit Omniscient” to “HD First-Person.”

This led me to the question: What would Atari 2600 Asteroids look like, from the cockpit? How would you handle the edgeless field of play? Would it necessarily become a sphere, with the Triangle fixed on a point, and the asteroids free-rolling, frictionless boulders? Or is there a way to keep the field flat, while the asteroids recede and grow?

This kept me awake last night. I need help.

BONUS 80’s REFERENCE: “Got Asteroids?” ” Naw, but my dad does. Can’t even sit on the toilet some days.”