Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters : Chasing High Score

Astro Blasters Tips and Secrets

2009-06-16T19:24:00.000-07:00

OK, before we get to the list of targets and exactly how to get a high score like a million points or more, let's go over the list of tips, secrets and things to think about and maybe some things to avoid.

:: Points ::

Target Regular Lit

Hidden 50,000 ---

Triangle 10,000 100,000?

Diamond 5,000 10,000

Square 1,000 5,000

Circle 100 500

:: Things that will affect your score ::

Your Astro Blaster Accuracy - If you ride alone, you have two blasters to choose from. Otherwise, you could be in for a rotten ride. When your blaster first becomes active, aim for a black part of the wall or ceiling and look for your red dot. Sometimes it will be pretty accurate, but often it won't be. So figure out what you need to do to compensate so when you fire, you know how to get your red dot in the black center of the 'Z' targets.

Your Astro Blaster Strength - You want to get a feel for the intensity of the red dot. I have on several occasions, had a faint dot and when I fired at a target it just didn't have the same 'feel' to it and I never hit anything. If you find yourself in this position, use the other blaster. I have never had both blasters be bad.

Ride Speed - no seriously. I have been on the ride early when the park opened and for a while, the ride was at a slower pace than what it seems to be normally. The ride also slows down or stops when wheel chair bound passengers or similar? are boarding. When the ride is moving faster, you have less time (and lose some accuracy) to hit targets. So you will hit less targets and hit them less often.

Ride Stops - If you happen to have a ride stoppage (I think usually this is for wheel chair bound passengers getting on or off the ride), hopefully you are in a good spot. Try to aim for the highest point target you CAN HIT. Your other option is to get some practice aiming for a target you can't normally hit.

Strange things are afoot at the CircleK - OK, old reference, but seriously, sometimes weird things happen. IE: once in the last room after racking up a decent score I couldn't hit ANYTHING. It was like my gun wasn't registering. Another time, both my wife and I couldn't hit the toy target in the last room that is 2 feet away. And we both fired about 10x each and it is easy to hit. I dunno why, but it seems to happen occasionally.

:: Things to remember ::

There are only 85 targets in the game - or so some articles tell.

There are only about 6? TRIANGLEs in the ride.

You can hit a target again and again. You should be pulling the trigger repeatedly at everything you aim for. If you hit it, keep hitting it. You may need to adjust a bit, but once you are on target, you should be able to hit 2-3-4-5 times in a row, maybe more.

Courtesy Points. For every 5 misses or something like that, you get a hundred points and the gun will respond as if you hit a target (light up and vibrate). So, 1 - if you have someone younger riding with you, just keep telling them to pull the trigger - 'Shoot the Zs'; 2 - sometimes it is hard to know for sure if you HIT the target or you got your courtesy points. That is why firing repeatedly can sort-of clue you in. This is good to know when you are aiming for Zurgs Secret Spot on his chest.

Skip Circles ... Unless - There is really no value in shooting for Circles... UNLESS they are part of a nested set. In a few circumstance, shooting a circle will make another target pop up, or the circle target fall to reveal a higher value target.

The alien in a box requires 3 hits on each target I think. It is a nested target with a square on the outside. You may have to hit it 3x for the box to open. Then inside a Diamond target appears. This one I KNOW you have to hit 3x to make the alien pop up with the TRIANGLE. Hit this often, then when he pops down, hit the Diamond 3x again and the alien pops up again.

Secret Spot(s) - On the first Zurg, the secret spot is a dark hole like circle in the middle of his chest. Like other targets, you can hit it multiple times for more points. There supposedly is a secret spot on Zurg #2 in the last room, but I can not see it to confirm.

Zurg - Hitting the squares around Zurg, seem to cause him to turn that direction, giving you more opportunity to hit the secret spot. If you can't, hit the squares as often as you can as your car moves away.

Tunnels - There are several targets in the 2 dark tunnels. One tunnel is just dark, the other I believe has the streaming lights. There are supposedly TRIANGLES in the tunnels. I have seen only Diamonds. Keep your eyes open and shoot repeatedly.

Broken Toy - The toy in the last room everyone talks about is behind you after you pass Buzz and Zurg. Turn your car and hit the circle to pop the toy with the TRIANGLE. Hit it multiple times.

If I have forgotten anything or you know of something else to add, please drop a line or comment.

Best Astro Blasters Ride Tips Videos

2009-06-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

When in the heat of battle during that 5 minutes of non stop firing, it is a tough thing to remember everything and even to be aware of it all.

How many different rooms are there?
Where are the best targets?
What should you be aming for?

One of the things that helps immensly is being able to sit back and watch the ride and take the time to notice all the things you miss while you are frantically firing away, oblivious to everything but what is in your aim.

Below are some videos I found that realy helped me find the targets and create a strategy.

This first one is a really good video. Just click the link and checkout one of the video links: http://www.visionsfantastic.com/page-buzz.html .

These next few I found on YouTube. There are a lot of videos on YouTube about Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, but these were the ones I found to be the best.

This one is a bit long. Drag the pointer right to the 4 minute mark and you'll get a good video of the ride.

Another Good Video

This one is a bit corny, but this guy is good. I learned a few tricks from this guy. He also has a corny map that is hard to read, but could be helpful I guess. I will link to it later.

If you know of other videos that are good, drop me a line.

High Scores for Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters

2009-06-09T21:31:00.001-07:00

High Scores:

Here is the actual link to the Disney site that keeps the scores for both online play and in-park play. If you forget or skip the part after the '?' in the URL below, I believe it defaults to "Daily" and also to "High-Scoring teams" which is a combo of an in-park player and an online player.

To see the All-time high for in park riders, make sure you click "All Time" and then "Best In-Park Players of All-time".

Incidentally, you can play online here as well.

Here is the link:
http://disneyland.disney.go.com/disneyland/en_US/buzzOnline/index?name=BuzzOnlineAllTimeScoresPage

Some basic background on the ride

2009-06-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

While none of this will really affect your score, I thought I would throw it out there just to, well, collect it in one place and be done with it.

The ride is inspired by the Disney movie "Toy Story 2". The concept is helping Buzz defeat Zurg by using a laser gun to hit targets around the course. Apparently there are 85 targets around the course and there are no targets on the bad guys. (Do you actually see much else other than targets and things that get in their way? I don't.)

The cars are called XP-40 vehicles and the astro blasters are tethered with about a 3 foot cord to the vehicle which allows you a lot of freedom to move around to get better aim. This seems to not be true for the Florida ride and seems to be a common complaint on forums. Also, when you hit a target, your gun vibrates and the back of the gun lights up. That is one way to know if you hit a secret spot since the secret spots do not light up.

The XP-40 vehicle has 2 blasters, one each on the left and right and a joystick in the middle that allows you to spin the vehicle around to get better aim on your targets.

The blasters themselves have what seem to be a red laser in them and when checking your gun's accuracy, you can aim it at a part of the black wall where no one else is shooting and see the red dot from your gun. I think I read somewhere about them using infrared, but that doesn't seem right since you can see the red dot appear on the wall or target, and it doesn't make sense to me to have both an infrared laser and a red aiming laser. But what do I know?

Here are a couple links that are the source for this info and have more details and trivia:
http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/sections/business/business/article_446035.php

http://www.waltdisneyboards.com/disneyland-resort-theme-parks/3597-did-you-know-buzz-lightyear-astro-blasters.html

One article says that the top score is 999,999. Now, if that used to be true, I do not know. What I do know is that while the score counter in the car may be limited to 999,999, as of today, the actual high score is in double digit millions. From what I have read about the Florida ride, it does seem like the top score is 999,999 which some had posted is able to be done in the beginning of that ride.

And it appears that the California ride has 2 more unique features. Not only can you play online and combine the score with someone really riding the game, but only Astro Blasters at Disneyland allows you to email your photo and score to yourself, or I suppose your most fierce opponent.

One article also mentions 2 secret targets which most people seem to believe is the center of the chest on both Zurgs. I have only seen the one on the first Zurg and cannot verify the second. I have also heard something about a secret target on a few other places a well, but I haven't been able to confirm anything other than the one spot on the first Zurg.

These sources seems a bit old, so there is no telling if it is still accurate or if anything has changed. But it is a starting point.

A last thing to mention is that based on different forum posts, at least point scores for certain things, including the secret spots, seems to vary and may actually change at times whether randomly or due to deliberate changes by the developers.

Astro Blasters Disneyland, Not Disney World

2009-06-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

I thought just in case, that I would clarify which ride I am talking about and give a bit of a warning.

For all purposes here, I am strictly referring to Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters here in California.

So, anytime you are looking up things in relation to the Buzz Lightyear ride, the rides are different and have different names in Florida (Walt Disney World) versus here in California (Disneyland).

In Florida, the ride is called Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger Spin.
Here in California, it is called Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.

So be careful, as you may find tips, clues, and descriptions that seem odd or unusual if you end up finding things for the WDW ride.