Reviews

This was one of the very first games written for the Spectrum by Psion who provided the bulk of the Sinclair software catalogue for the first couple of years. Incidentally, it was also the first game that I bought for my new machine at the time.

Based on the arcade classic Asteroids, it's pretty standard fare and plays just like the original with large rocks splitting into smaller ones and flying saucers appearing from time to time to add a bit of variety. Instead of the vector graphics of the arcade original though, there are sprite graphics which actually look quite decent even if they won't necessarily go down well with the purists.

With much other early Spectrum software being written in BASIC and/or hastily ported over from the ZX81, the slick sprite graphics and arcade action gave something of a hint as to what the Spectrum was capable of.

It's not exactly a timeless classic, but was just what the new machine needed at the time.

A delightful game indeed like every other game ever made by PSION !!

PSION games are one of the things that make me miss the 80´s so badly ... :(

The sound fxs are quite cute and the inertia of the asteroids is so accomplished that you will soon feel inmersed into the deep space !!!

The score marker is also a PSION landmark ...

A cute piece of early software .

1982 Sinclair Research (UK)
by Psion Software

Planetoids is an above average game for its day, and the best of the bunch of the 'Asteroids' wannabes, quite faithful to the original, highly playable and addictive. Unfortunately it got 'old' quite rapidly with the increase of new game ideas in the coming years.

As a 16K game and as an Asteroids game, I have played much worse and this is more than passible. I also like the way the ship doesn't glide along the screen as you thrust like you do in Asteroids, that usually sets me up to a disaster, but there's no such thing here as you just stay still when you thrust. It's not much to shout about really, but it's quite good for its time and I rather liked it.