Reviewed by Tiffany Craig
The date is 2345 and the cutest teensy little aliens you ever saw are invading the Earth, yes they are. In an obviously unprepared and archaic display of tactics they’re descending on you in a block pattern. It is your mission to destroy them all and keep them from touching the ground. Sound easy? They have strategies up their darling little sleeves.
The first is driving you into a hypnotized frenzy by playing a CD from what the Earthlings call a ‘gay bar.’ If you can concentrate with the sweet sounds of mellow techno pumping from your speakers then you’ve busted through a major obstacle.
Your side isn’t being terribly helpful either. Remember that Mars mission where they just gave you a flashlight to kill zombies with? Well, this time, you must dodge and kill the sweet tiny alien missiles whilst using only a Government Issue giant steel ball. But you’re a soldier and your job becomes worthwhile and satisfying when you hear their precious eeking squeaks of death by using their very own invasion technology against them. This is international security people! Do what has darned well got to be done.
Invadazoid is not a game to skive off work with. It’s screen hogging, full techno sounding, retro appealing and a terrible distraction from that form that must be looked at right now (even though it’s 5:00 on Friday as I write). Don’t be fooled by the easiness of the first level either. After I saved Chile I found Hawaii to be infuriating with its missiles and lost lives. If you can grab the missile deflection drops use them for Pete’s sake, the aliens seem to have a massive cache tucked away up there somewhere. And if you eventually grow tired of having your backside handed to you on a glowing plate by a smug alien bug on Invasion mode, you can have a rest with other types of play. Survival stacks the little so and so’s on top of you in a shooting dog pile match. In Classic mode you can return to the days of keyboard shortcuts and DOS by using the arrows and enter as opposed to the mouse.
I do have one huge problem with the demo version of Invadazoid. If you suck at Space Invaders, like me, you don’t really get a chance to see a whole lot of the game before you are nagged to give them your money for a full version. The demo is on a computer registry restricted hour of play time and the full version they want so desperately for you to buy, get this, costs 20 dollars. That’s a lot of your paycheck for a rehash of something we’ve all been playing since we were 5.
I know I’d rather spend it on a cheap re-release of Quake 3 on CD and download a free version of Space Invaders elsewhere (and we know there are even flash versions for free out there). Even if the full Bantam package has 60 gazillion exciting and fantastic levels with boss aliens that jump out and threaten to tighten their real tentacles around your real coffee drinking throat, it’s just an amusing and fun, but cheap looking “Space Invaders meets Arkanoid” type of game.