When I first played Space Invaders: Infinity Gene, I did not know what the game was trying to be. Sure it was very retro and was attempting to recapture the excitement of the golden years of video games, when it was about the immersion of player and game. Games back in those years were not trying to hit you over the head with a narrative or attempting to recreate World War 2, but were instead trying to seduce the mind of teenagers or young adults who had survived the 1970s full of sex, drugs, rock and roll, cheap sci-fi, and deep thinking.
Space Invaders in those days was a heroic alternative to early 80s gaming, its player versus the invaders in a battle for the ages. Of course the truest version of this game had to be experienced in the arcades. Visions of tie-dyed shirts, big hair, and blood shot eyes infused with the smell of pizza and Mello Yellow combined with David Bowie’s Lets Dance, this is what Space Invaders meant to me.
Many decades later we now have the advent of the Internet, multi-core processors, and cell phones with enough graphical fidelity to emulate game systems from just half a decade ago. We are now in the middle of a retro re-emergence and what better game to usher out this era then a new Space Invaders game that can be played on both HD game systems and your iPhone.
The concept of Space Invaders is very simple; it’s a top-down plane by which you must shoot at the invading aliens with your space ship. It was a simple concept but it fit very well with the 80s good vs. evil mentality of the Reagan era.
Space Invaders Infinity Gene is the latest in the long string of gaming comebacks and this title is very nice indeed. The main theme in Space Invaders I.G. is evolution, and this is the perfect gameplay monkey-wrench. The game starts out with the classic Space Invaders look and sound, however before long you will be experiencing visions and gameplay that the original creators could only dream of. The overall look of the game is very retro or neo-retro due to the fact that this is being created with modern high-definition technology. Space Invaders I.G. started out as a Japanese cell-phone game and then it came out over here on the iPhone with perfect touch controls, you can control the ship from anywhere on the screen.
The overall stage layouts of Space Invaders I.G. takes place on a evolutionary tree in which you will climb as you complete more and more stages. All the stages are listed as 1-3 or 3-2 and so on; however each level evolves as you ascend the tree. One thing that I love about this game is that you will not know what new changes will happen as you continue to each new stage. Space Invaders I.G. feels very mysterious due to the fact that you are always seeing new graphical backgrounds, getting new weapons, and experiencing new gameplay mechanics that will blow your mind. An example of the gameplay changes include prospective changing, obscure enemy approach patterns, and some of the coolest and strangest boss encounters in any shooter game period.
Some of the modes that are available on the HD gaming systems include normal mode, bonus mode, challenge mode, and music mode. Both challenge mode and music mode are both really awesome additions to this game. Challenge mode is fun and addicting due to the fact that it’s a completely new stage every single time you play it. Music mode is one of the coolest modes in a game ever, due to the fact that the game will create a level out of a music track on your system. However the music does not affect the gameplay of the level, but it’s really fun go through your music and just seeing the stages that can be generated from the music.
Overall, if you love old-school shooters and feel like you are up for a challenge then I would tell you to download Space Invaders I.G. to your HD gaming system or iPhone of your choice, this is a really awesome game. I think that I now know what this game was trying to tell me, and that is its fun to look to the past while evolving toward the future.
Review copy provided by publisher.
