Astro Wars

Astro Wars was an electronic arcade game of the 'table top' variety which were popular in the UK back in the early 1980's.

This one was made in Great Britain and released in 1981 by one of the biggest names in table top electronic gaming, Grandstand.

Astro Wars was an arcade game / shoot em up, with play involving four phases of dodging enemy missiles and battling with squadrons of attacking fighters, warships and command ships.

Put it this way, if you liked Galaxians then you would like Astro Wars.

So let us have a look at one of the most popular table top electronic games ever to be released...

Astro Wars was a bit like Galaxians - and for a 'home game' it was very good for the year - especially considering the limitations of the technology.

What made it stand out was the display which catered for showing the player ship and the aliens in different colours, which was quite unusual at the time. Most games of this type were generally monochrome.

You controlled your ship with a little metal joystick which moved to the left and to the right, and hit a big black fire button (which was cool) to shoot your missiles at the aliens attackers.

The display was quite tall and slender, meaning that there was only enough room for five aliens across the width of the display. This also meant that there were only five positions for your ship to occupy at the bottom of the playing area when dodging the enemy laser bolts.

In a sneaky move the aliens also dive bombed your ship - so you had to avoid them as contact with them caused you to lose a life.

As usual your score was counted at the top of the display as a four digit number - with the maximum score being 9999. If you ever reached this then you must have had super human reflexes as the game really sped up the more you played through it.

It should be noted that there are two obvious versions of Astro Wars. The earlier version had the Astro Wars motif printed in red on the unit, with later versions were printed in white.

Astro wars and table top game were very popular in the early 1980's. This wasn't to last though.

As the decade wore on and 8-bit machines such as the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro and Commodore 64 became more popular the demand for table top electronic games (and hand held games such as Tomy Sky Attack and 3D Thundering Turbo) lessened.

By the mid to late 1980's the genre was pretty much finished as gamers got stuck into the likes of ZX Spectrum Games and Amiga Games. Other 8-bit and 16-bit consoles also provided more variety for those that craved arcade action with their interchangeable cartridges.

Still - a good condition boxed Astro Wars is a true collectors item, and fans of Vintage Classic Toys will no doubt want to own at least one of them.

It should be noted that the console itself was rather cool looking.

The brushed 'metallic' silver and black combo was far better than the usual white or red the casings that these things usually came in.

It doesn't look as dated as most other consoles from the same era.