Uploaded December 2012 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This is Sega's Astron Belt arcade game from 1983. It's a rail shooter that uses Laserdisc footage to generate the backgrounds, with footage provided exclusively for the game by Toei as well as several other sources: Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, Battle Beyond The Stars and Message from Space.
The game is relatively simple, just shoot stuff and don't get shot, but the fact that your ship is a sprite overlayed on the video background makes it a little hard to judge what can and can't hurt you. You'll notice sometimes that I die suddenly near the end of the video from what I can only assume is ramming into the walls of the trenches, but there isn't much feedback except for a split second shot of your ship exploding. I also died once during a base attack scene for some weird reason.
Also, this game DOES NOT WORK in MAME (yet). Daphne is the only emulator that runs it efficiently. You can get an addon here that automatically downloads the needed files, but be aware that Laserdisc files are HUGE: ddl.pleasuredome.org.uk
This is Sega's Astron Belt arcade game from 1983. It's a rail shooter that uses Laserdisc footage to generate the backgrounds, with footage provided exclusively for the game by Toei as well as several other sources: Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, Battle Beyond The Stars and Message from Space.
The game is relatively simple, just shoot stuff and don't get shot, but the fact that your ship is a sprite overlayed on the video background makes it a little hard to judge what can and can't hurt you. You'll notice sometimes that I die suddenly near the end of the video from what I can only assume is ramming into the walls of the trenches, but there isn't much feedback except for a split second shot of your ship exploding. I also died once during a base attack scene for some weird reason.
Also, this game DOES NOT WORK in MAME (yet). Daphne is the only emulator that runs it efficiently. You can get an addon here that automatically downloads the needed files, but be aware that Laserdisc files are HUGE: ddl.pleasuredome.org.uk
