asteroids

February 12, 2015

New Asteroids Game Looks….Different

Peter Paltridge asteroids, Atari, console gaming 0

AINO has announced a new Asteroids game (AINO stands for “Atari In Name Only” since it’s actually a French company that purchased the name and trademark. The real Atari died in the mid-90’s) called Asteroids: Outpost. If it looks a bit different, that’s because it’s a sandbox-style survival game where you mine for resources, build bases and then defend those bases against….no, not asteroids, other players, though they promise asteroids will be involved somewhat. What this draws attention to is how fragmented the game industry has become. The supermarket game rack once contained a title to satisfy every taste and market segment — there were shooters as well as puzzlers, racers, sports games, platformers, adventure titles, RPGs and every other color in the game rainbow. As recently as the Playstation 2 and perhaps even in the beginning years of last-gen, you could release a faithful relaunch of Asteroids that was nothing but an overhead shot of a spaceship. Now if a physical release of a game that simple were to

December 8, 2014

Orion’s Successful Test Flight Brings Us Closer to Mars

Shawn Hopkins asteroids, mars, NASA, Orion, spacecraft 0

On Friday NASA successfully launched and recovered its Orion spacecraft, a critical test for future Mars missions. The spacecraft took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a Delta IV heavy rocket. During the 4.5 hour test it reached an altitude of 3,600 miles, successfully achieved orbit, re-entered the atmosphere and splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean. “We really pushed Orion as much as we could to give us real data that we can use to improve Orion’s design going forward,” said Mark Geyer, Orion Program manager. “In the coming weeks and months we’ll be taking a look at that invaluable information and applying lessons learned to the next Orion spacecraft already in production for the first mission atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.” The SLS is an in-development rocket system that will replace the Delta IVs when Orion goes on its deep space missions. No one rode in Orion’s capsule last week, but that’s the eventual plan. NASA wants to first send astronauts to an asteroid