First images of “Laser Blast X” for Atari 8-bit computers revealed
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Peter J. Meyer revealed this week the first images of "Laser Blast X", his improved version for Atari 8-bit computers of the unique shooter for the Atari 2600 console(Activision, 1981).
Meyer said that "Laser Blast" had been on his to-do list for about five years. Originally, it was going to be part of a multi-game cartridge - as per the deal with Sal "kjmann" Esquivel, who later stepped away from the project - so he was encouraged to make an optimized version from scratch.
Rather than simply making an exact port of the Atari 2600 game, Meyer wanted to take advantage of the Atari 8-bit computer's features, such as having four independent sprites on a line and a higher multi-color resolution for the playing field.
"I've added a lot of gameplay options to something that was made for the Atari 2600 console and now it's much more elaborate, with many more enemies moving around the screen," he stressed.
Players can now define whether there will be 3, 4 or 6 tanks on the battlefield; alien ships will also be flying above the tanks; and enemies can fire laser beams or small "beams" at their ship.
In addition, for the sake of adding variety to the gameplay, the author has added an option to disable the fixed positions of tanks, which now move independently on the ground.
The game is currently in the testing phase on several Atari computers to ensure that there are no operational issues, after which a release date will be set.
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