Space Invaders

The Good
Those who haven't heard or played Space Invaders before, the main object is to slide your ship left and right, shooting all 55 invaders on screen, while dodging their lasers. To make matters worse, the invaders are moving down towards Earth. And just when you thought you killed all invaders, fresh new ones appear on screen. Four barriers are provided for your own protection, but the invaders will take a chuck out of them with their lasers if they happen to shoot anywhere near them. You will receive 20, 30, or 40 points for each invader you kill. A passing spaceship will also fly past, and by shooting this ship, who knows how many points you are awarded.

In the arcade version of space Invaders, all the invaders are white; but in the NES version, they are color-coded, with two rows of green and cyan invaders, and only one row of purple invaders. Each one of them turn to yellow and red once they get close to Earth. You have three lives, and you lose one of them if one of the invaders hit your ship. As usual, lose all your three lives and the current game ends.

Space Invaders must be one of the most difficult games ever. More often than not, the invaders will block your shots simply by shooting its lasers so it collides with yours, and both lasers disappear. Furthermore, if invaders turn yellow or red, it is much more difficult to shoot them, as you are directly underneath the invader, and you won't have the chance to slide away out of trouble.

The Bad
Too difficult for me. I can't quite get to the next round.

The Bottom Line
With repetitive levels and greater difficulty, this game might not be your cup of tea. For a greater experience, play Taito's Super Space Invaders or the remake.

Rating: *½

The Good
I guess Space Invaders is one of those games you just have to play at one point or another. The Atari 2600 version isn't a bad choice to play. It feels quite similar to the original arcade version. I actually thought the sound was better than the arcade version's. Or well, at least it is less mind-numbingly aggravating.

As far as graphics go: well it's the Atari 2600 so we can't expect much, but they get the job done. The aren't overshadowed by its big brother on the arcade, which is good.

The Bad
The game is rather hard, just like its arcade counterpart. The start of a level is alright, but once there are only a few invaders left they will fly around the screen like mad, which makes timing your bullets right quite difficult.

Quite frankly I couldn't say I had the dedication in me to try to master this game so that I could get really far. It might have been one of the best games ever when it was released, but as far as I'm concerned I'd say it was quickly surpassed by others of its genre like Galaxian, Galaga, Asteroids and Missile Command.

The Bottom Line
Space Invaders can be fun to kill some time with, but I doubt anyone these days will want to spend hours on it to become a real pro. There are just better games in this genre that have more depth and variation to them, which make them a lot more fun.

Space Invaders is definitely a game you should play at one point in your life, for its historical relevance. Though I would recommend the MAME version for that since it emulates the original Arcade game. Though the Atari-2600 version is a good second if you can get your hands on it.