I spent a fair chunk of my student days playing Asteroids in the college common room, but I’ve been disappointed by the various Asteroids clone that I’ve seen on the Mac App Store so far.

Violet Storm (Mac App Store link) isn’t a strict Asteroid clone, as you’re fending off waves of enemy ships rather than simply blowing up lumps of wandering space-rock, but it does capture something of the frantic shoot-em-up feel of my old favorite.

Originally developed for iOS, Violet Storm puts you in charge of a little space ship that you pilot around the screen using the WSAD buttons on your keyboard, while using your mouse to simply blast the living daylights out of the enemy ships around you.

You start out with a simple laser, but fending off successive waves off attackers earns you weapons upgrades, such as multi-laser blasts and deflection bombs that buy you more time by pushing away approaching ships.

The graphics and sound effects are completely over the top, with weapon effects that look like a psychedelic screen-saver and a thumping soundtrack that sounds like a 1985 disco club (which is either a good thing or bad thing, depending on your point of view).

The main campaign mode simply swamps you with wave after wave of enemies, but there are two other modes available as well. Sniper mode measures the accuracy of your shooting, while Speed Havoc challenges you to kill as many enemies as possible within a time limit.

Macworld's buying advice

If you can cope with the sensory overload then Violet Storm is pretty good fun. There’s not an awful lot to it, but it’s good, mindless fun for your lunch hour or after a few drinks down at the pub.