As someone who has enjoyed playing video games in the past, I have to say that I enjoyed “Arteroids” more than I probably should have. Of course, I was naturally reminded of the classic arcade game Asteroids, but this offering provided me with much more than I was expecting. The concept of words shooting down other words sounds dorky in its own way, but I found the game to be a little deeper than that. I think what really made me appreciate the game more was being able to read the poem in the settings menu. When I could see the whole body of text, it allowed me to appreciate the thought behind it as well as actually begin to understand what exactly I was shooting at.
As far as gameplay is concerned, I found it to be quite simple. Some may think that the trick is to maneuver around the screen a bit, but I thought it was easier if I remained stationary and spun in circles. Had I known that accuracy was taken into account for the final score, I might have been more selective about my shots, but live and learn I suppose. The sound effects amused me quite a bit and my roommate gave me a funny look when he saw what I was giggling at. Sigh. When I cranked up the difficulty, the game actually went up a few notches in terms of enjoyability for me. I’m not one for challenges, but the high speed of the hurtling words allowed for a lot longer period of gaming for me.
In the end, I wasn’t completely convinced this was a work of “literature”, but like I said, when I saw the full poem, I was able to appreciate the context a little more. I have to say that this game was a lot more fun for me than Nelson’s “game, game…you know the rest”. The only thing that could have pushed it over the top would have been to hear “time to meet your maker” when I died. I have to hand it to Nelson, that was excellent.