Review: Space Invaders Extreme (DS)

Space Invaders Extreme
Nintendo DS

Overall Score: 8.1
------------------------

Quick Fix:
+ High-quality, intense color filled backgrounds with classic pixilated enemies
+ Stays true to original Space Invaders while adding new gameplay elements
+ Interactive music fits nicely with the setting
+ Great, creative boss fights
+ Fun, challenging multiplayer and makes good use of Wi-fi
+ Difficult levels

- Single-player campaign too short
- Not enough varied boss fights
- The top screen’s gauges are important but cannot be easily read because the bottom screen takes up all of your attention
- Difficult levels

-------------------------------



Gamer or not, chances are that you have at least heard of Space Invaders. When the original game was released in 1978, people went bonkers over shooting aliens with a tiny spaceship. Thirty years later this same idea is being brought to the DS (and PSP) with Space Invaders Extreme. Except now, the aliens are a lot more colorful and there’s much more to do than fire a simple laser.

Space Invaders Extreme has you control a tiny, yellow spaceship capable of taking out nasty aliens that fly your way. The only buttons you need to use are the left and right buttons on the D-pad and either B or A to shoot. Some of pixilated baddies are able to fire back at you and they generally move in a left to right fashion, just like the classic Space Invaders. There are even still UFOs that float over the top of the formation that give you a lot of points. Each stage features a barrage of different enemy formations and your job is to take them all out and then face a boss to clear the stage.

There are a slew of abilities you can get however, to help ease this process. If you shoot four space invaders of the same color, a power up will drop that goes along with that color. A green item will give you a five laser wide shot; a blue item will give you a wide and constant laser, a red item will give you bombs that explode nearby enemies on contact, and a black item will give you a shield. Power ups only last for a short time so you need to use the upgrades effectively to kill more enemies and hopefully get more items.

If you kill enough enemies of similar types and kill them at a high rate, you may also call a special UFO that, if hit, will bring you to a mini-stage. If you complete the mini-stage in the allotted time (usually no longer than 15 seconds), you will enter “fever mode” back in the original stage where you gain a powerful, long-lasting power up and the UFOs give you a jackpot, which are great if you are going for high scores.

There are meters on the top screen of the DS which keep track of various things like your score, the rate at which you kill enemies, your chain, and which color enemy you have killed. Most of these are very helpful if you’re trying to spam fever mode but if you dare take a look at the top screen, chances are you will get killed on the bottom screen. They do have some side meters on the bottom screen, namely the color enemy tracker and the time left on your power ups. However, not knowing your rate may keep you from spawning a UFO that will induce a fever mode mini-game. It’s a small problem though, because if you play the game long enough, you can probably gauge how fast your rate is.

The top screen’s gauges disappear though when you are in a boss battle and the developers get creative with these fights. In stage four’s boss battle, your spaceship is only on the top screen and the boss is below you. Shooting behind you is impossible but luckily there are reflecting enemies on the top of the top screen. By shooting the reflector enemies and dodging your own laser, you can hit the boss on a ricochet. It’s a creative fight that gets really dicey when you suddenly realize that you need to dodge the boss’ lasers, your own lasers, and the lasers from the reflector enemies themselves.

All of this occurs with flashy graphics that will dazzle your eyes and probably make you think that you are on acid. The backgrounds are so bright and colorful and everything moves so it feels like a lot is going on at once. Simply put, it’s really pretty and psychedelic… dude. This doesn’t distract you from the space fighting however, as the enemies are easy to see. The enemy design hasn’t diverged from the classic Space Invaders either. The aliens will likely look familiar as Space Invaders Extreme aptly shows that retro-style graphics can be integrated with modern developments.

The music also fits the setting excellently. Space Invaders Extreme features techno-themed music that seems to move along with the background color scheme. What is especially creative however, is that the actions you take while shooting the space invaders affects the song. When you fire, the game has a different sound depending on what level you are on. When the space invaders get hit, they also make different musical sounds depending on the level. For example, when you hit a space invader with a reflector shield it makes the sound of a crash cymbal on level 3. And since you’re firing and hitting things so much, the music ends up being crazy and highly entertaining.

Unfortunately though, the space invader madness doesn’t last long in the one-player mode. There are only five main stages for you to play through, with levels three through five varying in difficulty with sub-stages. The various sub-stages have some different enemy formations, and you will die more on the harder ones, but the bosses are all the same, with possibly one more attack phase or pattern.


However, you’ll probably will play this game over and over again either because you keep on losing all your lives or because you want to break your high score. In arcade mode, you can replay the same stage over and over again if you lose all your lives, which will happen to you. This game is hard. The difficulty is not impossible, but don’t be surprised if you have to play one of the harder stages five or ten times. I haven’t beaten the hardest sub-stages of stage four or five nor did I stand a chance in the extreme mode.

Once you get really good however, you can try the ranking mode, where you can go through the game’s five stages with no ability to continue and put your name up on the worldwide leaderboard. Or, if climbing leaderboards isn’t your thing, you can go on Nintendo Wi-fi and challenge someone else to a battle. In multiplayer mode you both face endless waves of enemies and the first person to run out of lives loses. You can still get the same basic power ups (no fever mode) in the regular game and shooting UFOs now results in you sending more space invaders to the opposing player. You can even play this game locally with only one cartridge, with the other DS user using download play.

Even if Space Invaders Extreme didn’t have the “Space Invaders” label to give older gamers nostalgia, this game is great on its own. The simple controls and fast-paced action makes this one highly addictive and you’re guaranteed to spend on ton of time with it. Selling only for $20, this game is a steal and will keep you busy for hours on end.

Overall Score: 8.1