Refreshing twist on an old franchise
The storyline of the game is simple enough. Invade the humans and their land. When the game starts, it explains the background story of how one ship was able to defeat all those aliens by itself, which I thought was a nice way to connect the old game to this one. It’s not that the story is all that deep, but the way the game presents it in the introduction really makes it sound serious. The introduction makes you feel like you really were a hero when you put in that quarter to play Space Invaders back in the day.
The controls aren’t too hard to figure out. You lead your band of space invaders by using the analog stick on the nunchuck. To aim where you want to attack, just point the Wiimote to what you want to destroy or kill. Button A is used for all the different types of attacks. The most basic one is where the aliens are thrown in the direction you want them to attack. To switch to a variation of that attack, the trigger button is used. For example, instead of a straight attack, you might want the aliens to swarm in from each side. Also, one of the types of attacks will have the aliens bouncing in a group, forming something similiar to a pogo stick of destruction. To use a special attack, the C button is pressed. This basically annihilates everything on the screen. You start off with only two of these, which seems fair. There are really no complaints with the controls. Everything works the way it should.
There is a timer on the left hand of the screen and when you are hit by the humans, time is subtracted. Time is also gained when you are doing well and beating them. I’m not quite sure if I like this system, because it takes away from some of the fun if I know I have to get through the levels quickly rather than enjoy them leisurely. But overall though, much fun remains.
Space Invaders Get Even has some of the best visuals seen on WiiWare. The old school look of the aliens complements the more modern style graphics of the city. It gives the game a surreal atmosphere throughout the time spent playing. There is a good explanation for why the visuals are so good on this WiiWare title. It was supposed to be a retail game! In fact, that’s why when one downloads Space Invaders Get Even, there are only two missions and one boss level that come with it. That’s because the other levels have to be bought online as DLC. All in all, if you want the full game prepare to fork over 2000 points in all.
The music is great. The feeling one gets from hearing the music in this game is being in a theater and watching a cheesy B quality movie where…well where aliens are invading Earth. You know the movie is silly, but at the same time it’s fun to watch. The voice overs get the job done, although sometimes hearing the same line when the game is over gets tiresome. I can’t recall how many times I have heard, “I guess we did it…just barely.” I would have liked to have heard a bit more lines at some point. The complaint is minor though. I suppose if I am tired of hearing the same lines when I lose, I just better not lose then.
There is an online leaderboard option in the menu, so that will make a lot of people happy when they get this. Also, it gives the game a true arcade touch, as one of the best feelings people get in an arcade is beating the high score of another player. One thing they could have done but didn’t is make an online co-op mode.
This is overall a great game and I fully recommend downloading it. Beware of the mammoth sized space this title takes up (700 blocks with the DLC, unless my memory fails me). However, with the use of an SD Card, space should not be an issue on the Wii anymore.