Space Invaders Extreme (Xbox 360)

[aruljothi]

Release Date: 05/06/2009
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Genre: Action
Publisher: Taito
Developer: Taito

If you missed Taito's Space Invaders Extreme last year, you missed a surprisingly well-done revival of an arcade legend that's seen its fair share of sequels and remakes. Extreme has the same object as the original '70s hit: simply blow away the screen of all the invaders without getting blown away yourself. But this time, stages are divided into multiple waves of enemies that come onto the screen, and when you've blasted enough of them, it's time for a boss fight against a larger invader. In between it all are various brief bonus rounds triggered by shooting flashing UFOs -- all layered under a supercolorful art style and thump-heavy electronic music.

The Xbox 360 port of Extreme still features all the little touches that made it a great revival on the handhelds: the pulsating backgrounds; the rhythmic pattern of your shots; the way a struck enemy will be pushed back -- all viscerally satisfying, just like how Pac-Man Championship Edition uses similar effects to add some "oomph" to an otherwise overdone arcade game. Although it's pretty much the same game (especially compared to the PSP version), Extreme does feature new stage backgrounds using Llamasoft-designed patterns based on the same visualizer engine in the 360's music player. And that's not just a bullet point; the backgrounds are slightly more muted and less busy than the looping video backgrounds in the PSP version, making it better to see what's going on in the chaos of missiles and explosions.


On the surface, this version of Space Invaders Extreme looks, sounds, and plays just the same as the others, but it has a big advantage by being on a much bigger screen. Because of that, I sometimes felt I was enjoying the game more than I did on the handhelds. Even though a stupid death can still tick me off, I was more willing to select "retry" and go right back to the game -- something I didn't do as much on a smaller system I could easily walk away from. Couple that with the beats being replicated in the controller's rumble motors (think Rez HD), and you have a somewhat more engaging game, all for the better.

While the game still works fine conceptually, this version has some flaws on the outside. The biggest one has to be a rather baffling leaderboard system, where Arcade mode scores include the player's total number of lives. In other words, rank is now partly dependent on how long you last as well as how good you are, meaning the leaderboards can go in any direction. It's definitely a problem if you're gunning for glory, but it's not a total bungling -- as some consolation, there are separate leaderboards for the more genuinely competitive multiplayer modes Survival and Score Attack -- boards that don't count lives and properly measure how far you got.