| paleface [sys=PSP; cat=Shooter_Vert; reg=NA] |
| | | Rather brilliant new Space Invaders game. You still move along the bottom of the screen, shooting semi-slowly at aliens shimmying back and forth toward you down the screen, but now you've got powerups, color-coded combos, mini-challenges, and boss fights to deal with, too, all presented in a colorful, very animated "Synaesthesia" style--you know, the Rez-like gig where the player's shots make a pattern of sounds against a psychedelic, pulsing background.
Invaders come along in multiple colors, and the key is shooting four of the same color, because that causes a powerup to drop, um and probably gives more score, but I'm too busy shooting to stop and do addition. The weapon powerups usually only last for a few seconds (although you can hold the shoulder button to keep them in reserve if you want), but can really clear a screen quickly, and give you a good bonus (I think).
The UFOs that creep across the screen are back, too; shoot them for big scores, or even to warp to a mini-challenge, like shooting down 20 whizzing ships, or something like that, within a short time limit. Complete the mini-challenge and you put the game into "Fever" mode, where you get big bonuses as long as you can keep up chains of destruction, or something like that.
As you can see, I'm not too scientific about adding the bonuses together. Fortunately, the game is happy to do that for you, and leave you free to concentrate on zapping things, which is fun. The game is way more fast-paced than the original Space Invaders--oh, and there are no bases to hide behind, so you do have to keep moving.
I haven't been all that keen on the boss fights so far, though; they've mostly involved a big alien or two moving around slowly. Hm.
Oh, one thing that's really nice is that the game lets you start "Arcade Mode" at the beginning of the last stage you reached, so you don't have to keep re-playing earlier levels each time you boot the game up, and you can leap right into the fray, close to where you left off. I really wasn't keen on the game at first, because the first level is slow, but once I started using this feature, that distate went away, and now I'm kind of getting into this whole color-combo Space Invaders thing. |
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