Asteroid Blaster

The one with Sal's unbeaten high score

This is my cabinet. I don't mean I own it — I own all of them — I mean this is the one that's mine. The one I play. Every arcade operator has a machine they gravitate toward after the last customer leaves, and for me it was always Asteroid Blaster. There's something about the vector graphics glowing on a black screen in a dark room at two in the morning that makes you feel like you're actually out there in the void, dodging boulders and trying to survive.

I'd close up around midnight, flip the sign off, and then I'd play. Just me and the asteroids. The regulars called the tiny ones "dust" and the big ones "boulders." I called the medium ones "trouble," because they split into dust when you shoot them and dust moves fast. You learn the physics of a game like this the way a pool player learns angles — not from a textbook, but from a thousand hours of doing it wrong until you start doing it right.

My initials — S-A-L — have been at the number one spot on that high score board since 1983. Forty years and counting. The regulars knew. They'd try, sometimes for weeks at a stretch, to knock me off. A few came close. A kid named Ray got within 12,000 points once and I heard about it from three different people before I even opened up the next morning. I went in early that day and played a round before anyone showed up. Just to make sure.

I've never reset the high scores. Some operators did that — wipe the board every month to keep things fresh. Not me. That board is a history. It's a record of everyone who ever cared enough to try. And right at the top, where it's been since Reagan was president: S-A-L. I'm either very good or I picked a very unpopular cabinet. I prefer not to investigate which one it is.

High Score Board — As of Last Check 
  ╔══════════════════════════════╗
  ║    ASTEROID BLASTER          ║
  ║       HIGH SCORES            ║
  ╠══════════════════════════════╣
  ║                              ║
  ║   1. SAL ........... 247,830 ║
  ║   2. RAY ........... 235,610 ║
  ║   3. KIM ........... 198,400 ║
  ║                              ║
  ╠══════════════════════════════╣
  ║  #1 SINCE: NOV 1983         ║
  ║  RESETS: 0                   ║
  ╚══════════════════════════════╝
"Forty years and nobody's beaten my high score. I'm either very good or I picked a very unpopular cabinet. Don't answer that." — Sal "Pixel" Martinez 
    _____
   |  _  |
   | |_| |  - Sal "Pixel" Martinez
   |  _  /    Galaxy Zone Arcade
   |_| \_\   Est. 1982