Space Invaders is a fizzy, addictive treat-like a bag of cola bottles but with slightly more nutritional value, and all for roughly the price of a London pint. If you fancy testing yourself against other online players, meanwhile, there's a Ranking mode: a rapidly-escalating challenge where each shot you miss takes seconds off your timer as you try to build a high score, while debuff pickups cascade towards you, just to make things tougher still.Ĭrisp and colorful with an energetic EDM soundtrack, Arkanoid vs. Its levels are short enough that you can easily binge a dozen or more at once, the action building thrillingly as waves get denser, barriers are fortified, and strategically placed bombs trigger cross-shaped explosions. Related, on Waypoint: In Conversation with the King of Game Boy 'Tetris'
Even at full length, you'll find yourself madly scrubbing your finger across the screen when the action heats up-as a result, I've accidentally pulled up my iPhone's Control Center menu more times than I care to mention.īut Taito's got your back: if you accidentally interrupt the action, it gives you a three count to prepare yourself before plunging you back into the white-hot frenzy of intergalactic war. If you're struggling on a particular stage, you can spend those hard-earned medals on one-off items to boost your chances, raise your attack power, increase the speed of projectiles and even extend the Vaus. Soon, you've got silver and gold blocks to contend with-the former eventually break once you've chipped away at their shiny exterior for long enough, but the golds are indestructible. These abilities become essential as the difficulty ramps up, with certain stages tailored more towards specific captain skills. It's heady, frantic stuff, not least since maintaining your combo means you can't afford to let any bullets reach the planet you're supposed to be protecting. Each stage asks you to eliminate a given number of invaders (and occasionally blocks) as the timer ticks down. You can even push forward as a projectile lands to play it with a straight bat and launch a fast-moving power shot in a straight line.
Here, the bricks essentially function as the invaders' shields, while you maneuver the Vaus to reflect their shots, using your thumb or forefinger to drag it across the bottom of the screen. Unlike other Arkanoid games, your primary objective isn't about destroying rows of colored blocks by batting a ball back at them. (Arkanoid, in case you were wondering, is the name of the mothership, and has been since the original.) As humanity's last hope, you must use a fighter craft called Vaus-which, conveniently, is shaped like a paddle-to take down the extraterrestrial menace. Long story short, those pesky invaders are blowing up planets left, right and center. There is, believe it or not, a plot to explain the crossover-because any brick-smashing game worth its salt needs a labyrinthine lore, right?