April
9, 2006
The
latest Space Invaders on the DS arrived with little fanfare, which
is to be expected, since the videogame press is more interested
in state-of-the-art eye candy than another rendition of a game from
1978. For them, it came and went without much thought. Please don't
be like them.
Despite
its age (whatever that's supposed to mean), Space Invaders is among
the true classic games, and certainly among the most important milestones.
It was this game that pretty much birthed the whole "videogame
craze," and there's something timeless about it that remains
riviting and tense. There have been a number of attempts to "modernize"
Space Invaders over the years, but they've only been moderately
successful, except, of course, for that marvelous retro version
on the Super Nintendo. Now that was a kick.
Well,
cut to the present, and the original designer, Tomohiro Nishikado,
has supervised the newest version, Space Invaders Revolution. It's
a great game; nothing transcendent like Jeff Minter's Tempest 2000,
but nothing cheap or gratituitous, like that SI knock-off that wound
up on the PS2 a while ago. It's an update to the classic game, but
it's a strictly faithful update, and that makes all the difference.
It's even closer to the metal than most of the later arcade sequels;
heck, even the original sound effects are used again.
SI
Revolution offers a mission-based structure, spread across 20 different
locations. Each location has a different mission, with different
enemies to defeat. On one level, you have to defeat a single doppleganger
that frantically bobs and weaves. On another level, you face a single
giant Invader, whose individual pixels must be destroyed (that's
the one on the box). Another mission involves a smaller playfield,
and less time to defeat the aliens, while others stick to the classic
formula.
You'll
face against one or two rows of invaders who fire so many shots
that your shields are obliterated in a single pass. You'll face
attackers that must be destroyed in a specific order. You'll even
face waves of invaders that disappear and reappear. This is great
stuff.
Shooter
fans will enjoy the various polygon cut-scenes of your spaceship
blasting off; that's pretty much required for any shooter, right?
Now here's something that will really trip your world. There are
various new power-ups you can earn and use on the missions (via
touch-screen, of course), which can be combined much like you could
in Gunstar Heroes. But here's the kick: in order to access them,
you need to earn points in Classic Space Invaders.
Now
that's something I've never seen before: a classic game designer
who requires you to spend some serious time with his original game
before you get to use all the toys in the new versiion. It's pretty
gutsy, and it shows just how much confidence Nishikado has in his
child. Game publishers today just figure the kids wouldn't touch
anything unless it involved swearing or hijacking cars or bashing
hookers over the head with 2x4's.
The
DS has a number of classic games in its roster, and the success
ratio is pretty good. Frogger is a sloppy mess. Dig Dug is really
good. That Atari Anthology (or whatever it's called) is a train
wreck. Namco's Pac-Man games are either really cool or, at the least,
interesting. And Tetris, despite that whole "infinite rotation"
controversy, is still Tetris. Who says classic gamers are stuck
in the past? We're the only ones who know what a real videogame
still is.
SI
Revolution should be seen by more people, if just to show how a
cool retro game on the Nintendo handheld could be pulled off. Heck,
any game that let's you use the stylus to put quarters into the
arcade machine has to be good. |
