Space Invaders

"In a “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon”-esque turn of events, Nelly Furtado is responsible for this review."

Space Invaders was never an amazing game. Even in the 70's when Taito's retro classic hit the arcades and everyone went nuts over it, the damn thing was ridiculously difficult. Imagine fending off a 5 by 11 grid of tiny space goons with only a particularly slim laser beam. As you hack into the alien invaders' battalion, the remaining troopers begin speeding up with every kill to reach ground and end the game. With some strategy, you'll eventually get down to one enemy, which will kick into overdrive and move at blinding speed.

You'd be lucky just to kill this guy in round one. Sometimes I'd manage to take out the entire armada, but they always returned for a second battle only this time their assault started closer to the Earth's surface. I could never get past round two in the arcades.

On the Atari 2600, I feel like a pro by comparison. It still has the same Space Invaders feel, but now the spacemen are only a 6 by 6 grid (with the rare appearance of the mother ship at the top of the screen for bonus points). Both your laser and your adversaries are also slightly wider making shooting down those aliens a far easier job. Additionally, the space invaders never reach the same ridiculous speed seen in the arcade. Many enthusiasts will see these as signs of a weak port, but personally I prefer playing a version that I can progress several rounds through. I mean, when a game is as simple and dated as Space Invaders, I can't be bothered with a high difficulty level that makes the game barely last five minutes.

The Atari version does have two changes from the arcade release that could potentially make the experience more challenging. Rather than six lives, Atari gave you a mere two. Anyone that spent their weekly allowance at their local arcade can tell you the real challenge to Space Invaders was stopping those last couple aliens. Enemy's disintegrating photon blasts could kill you in one hit, but they were easy to avoid and a direct shot from your own firepower would instantly negate the two beams. This time your attacks will simply pass right through the alien weaponry, but enemy fire is so much slower on the Atari that they're even easier to avoid (plus your attacks will instead take out an invader!). In actuality, these changes will do little but anger curmudgeons looking for an exact arcade port.

Grumpy old men will, however, be happy to know the worst parts of Space Invaders have wormed their way into the port. Once again, your ship sluggishly moves to and fro eventually making it a tiresome chore to catch up the swifter final invaders. In addition, there's the annoying fact that you must take out columns of aliens in a precise order to avoid certain death. The enemies stay in their grid and alternate between shifting left or right. Only when the left or right most column hits the edge of the screen do the spacemen drop one step closer to Earth. Once the enemies speed up, you have to make sure the remaining columns are next to each other and that there are as few as possible. For example, if you take out the first three columns in row, the rest of the fray will now need to take more steps left or right before they can shift down. However, say if you leave the at least one beast on the leftmost column and leave two far right columns intact, the army will speed up and quickly take a meager three or four steps before descending. Before you know it, they've breached your defenses and it's GAME OVER, MAN!

Normally strategy would be cool, but when all your encounters with the space invaders are nearly identical, being forced to use the same tactic gets old. At least those nefarious rocks from Asteroids didn't follow the same exact routine!

Like with Pong, I don't have any respect for Space Invaders as a some legendary, “untouchable” retro classic. Of course Space Invaders is far superior to that table tennis crap, but your slow-paced ship and the game's overly simplistic, rigid feel make it dated compared to even Atari 2600 games like Asteriods and Missile Command. In terms of a port, Space Invaders certainly isn't a faithful conversion, but the easier aspects of the game make it a more enjoyable experience.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/18/06