ASTRO BLASTER

• There are 14 secret bonuses (link)!

Number 01, bonus 2000 points. Shoot all fireballs in the asteroid belt.
Number 03, bonus 1000 points. Shoot all enemies without missing.
Number 04, bonus 700 points. Shoot all enemies before they wrap around to the other side of the screen, during waves that have the enemies that fly horizontally or diagonally.
Number 09, bonus 500, 700, 900, 1000 or 1500 points. Don't move at all when docking with the mother ship (1000 points for a PERFECTLY centered approach, 1500 points for 'the paint scraper', when you brush a docking clamp of the mother ship).
Number 12, bonus 700 points. Shoot all enemies before any escape the screen through the bottom (certain waves only).
Number 13, bonus 500 points. Shoot all enemies in proper order in sector 1.
Number 14, bonus 1000 points. Shoot all enemies in proper order in sector 2.
Number 15, bonus 1500 points. Shoot all enemies in proper order in sector 3.
Number 16, bonus 2000 points. Shoot all enemies in proper order in sector 4.
Number 17, bonus 2500 points. Shoot all enemies in proper order in sector 5.
Number 18, bonus 3000 points. Shoot all enemies in proper order in sector 6.
Number 19, bonus 3500 points. Shoot all enemies in proper order in sector 7.
Number 20, bonus 4000 points. Shoot all enemies in proper order in sector 8. (can only be achieved by hacking the game to play sector 8?
Number 22, bonus 600 points. Never get laser temperature critical during the sector (awarded before docking).
Number 25, bonus 500 points. Not dying during the sector (awarded before docking).

• Sector 8: When playing this game, when a player completes sector 7, the game repeats itself again starting at sector 1. However, during the attract mode, the game cycles through 8 sectors instead of just 7. There does not appear to be any way for a player to reach sector 8 during a regular game. Using a MAME cheat, we can force to 8 the memory location that is used for the sector and observe what happens when playing in sector 8. Sector 8 is playable; it is programmed to play the last six waves of sector 5, and during this sector, players can achieve secret bonus #20 for 4,000 points (see picture). This is the highest scoring secret bonus of the lot. It is awarded the same way as bonuses 13 through 19, by destroying all the enemies of a wave in a certain order. Further analysis of the game code does not seem to reveal any other unknown secret bonuses. My guess is that the other secret bonuses existed at some point in the game's development, but were taken out before the game was released. Also, it appears that initially there were 8 sectors to play through, and this was changed to 7 at some point before release. {Don Hodges}