I hope we all remember the video game Asteroids, right? In true arcade fashion it was a black-and-white vector game where you had to pilot a ship around an asteroid field, cracking the asteroids into smaller pieces without running into them. It was all easy until you lit the engines because true to space, your ship carried momentum in the vacuum of space and it was far too easy to end up careening in the worst possible direction. Some variants gave you a shield, or a hyperspace drive to teleport yourself out of a jam (and often into an even worse jam).

The sequel to Asteroids is called Space Duel and it lands near the top of my list of favorite video games. It was essentially Asteroids but color vector and with geometric shapes rather than asteroids. Still, you shot at them and broke them into smaller pieces and careened halfway out of control across the screen. Defense consisted of a shield that could be put up for a short amount of time. Space Duel could be played single or dual player, in competitive mode with separate lives and scores, or team mode with shared lives and score.

Team mode was definitely the best.

In this mode the red and green ships were joined together by a rigid filament that could freely pivot around. In single player mode, both ships turned in unison. Both ships fired in unison. Both ships used shields in unison. But when you lit the engines? Only the red ship would supply thrust. So suddenly you have asymmetrical thrust in this balanced system that sent both ships in an eccentric cartwheel across the screen, "leapfrogging" as they spun around each other. In two player mode, each ship was independently controlled, so both could be thrusting in different directions, fighting or magnifying each others' forces and creating insane directional vectors that led to dizzying spins and erratic movements.

One of the advantages of team mode was that you got a free hit: the first time you ran into an enemy, the colliding ship would become severely damaged. The blaster was weakened, the shield was degraded and the engine was down on power. But you would survive. However, another hit to either ship was fatal: that ship would be destroyed completely and the filament would burn up like a fuse until it destroyed the other ship.

If you ever find Space Duel in a dark corner of an arcade, give it a quarter and definitely try team mode. It's worth the quarter for the amusement factor.

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The sequel to Space Duel (and grandchild of Asteroids) was "Blasteroids". Blasteroids was a raster version with spacescape backgrounds and great border art. The unique draw was that there were three ships: the "Speeder" with big engines and light armor, the "Fighter" with the big cannon and the "Warrior" with heavy armour. And you could switch between ship types on the fly as you did battle with space rocks. You had an energy reserve that was used up when using shields or engines. When your energy is gone... the ship is dead. There were also extra powerups and energy pods to gather while trying not to run into the asteroids.

Two player games were co-op (separate scores but no friendly fire) and there was yet another twist: if one player was using the Speeder while the other was using the Warrior and the two ships touched... they would combine together into the Starlet! The Warrior would become an even bigger, heavier ship with a powerful, slow cannon and control of the engines. The Speeder would become a turret perched atop the big heavy, able to spin 360 degrees and plink away at threats. If either player changed ship types, they would de-combine back into two ships.

Rather than buttons to rotate the ships like its predecessors, Blasteroids had an optical spinner control (think "Tempest" or "TRON") to rotate the ship. This made being the turret on the Starlet extremely satisfying, able to spin quickly around and unleash a volley of death.