Sure, the game is trippy. Sure, it's original. But is Every Extend Extra Extreme worth anything beyond a trial run?
For those of you who aren’t “in the know” about this eccentric shooter-puzzle, E4 (or Every Extend Extra Extreme) is a XBLA port of last year’s E3 (or Every Extend Extra), which in turn is an upgraded successor of the freeware version Every Extend. Phew. Similarly sounding adjectives aside, Q Entertainment, the company behind the highly addictive Lumines and Meteos games, has struck gold again with the equally addictive Every Extend Extra... er, E4.
The premise is simple: You navigate a ship through a percussive-heavy space that’s teeming with pulsating enemies, all of which are dying to float your way and knock you out. If this concept is conjuring up images of Geometry Wars, think again. Rather than having a pixilated angry mob of shapes chase you around the black void, your enemies merely drift through the center of the screen. A more powerful enemy, capable of shooting, randomly appears in packs of three, but they, too, don’t consider your star-shaped ship a target, and merely blast dozens of colorful, deadly projectiles in random directions from their bodies. You don’t have the ability to shoot back either, and your only mode of defense is to blow up your ship in the vicinity of your multihued adversaries.
The strategy in E4 stems from two things: a sense of rhythm and patience. To maximize your score, you need to collect items, which come in the form of brightly colored blocks. These blocks serve to raise your shields, score multiplier, timer, and the number of Quicken you have, an item which (surprisingly!) increases the overall pace of the game. As a kamikaze pilot of sorts, you need to detonate your ship in the middle of a swarm of enemies; the higher your multiplier and your higher your Beat Score (an additional score multiplier gained by detonating in sync to the rhythm of the level’s music), the more points you get as you create a chain reaction whose explosions can tally into the thousands. Your score can reach well into the trillions after a couple playthroughs, which proves that this game is easy to pick up, and unfortunately, relatively easy to master.
There are a total of four modes to choose from in the single player mode: Unlimited (which requires you to collect yellow power-ups to keep time on a clock that continually counts down), Limited (which has players trying to rack up the highest score in a pre-set time), Play Wiz Your Muzik (which works like Unlimited, with your ship exploding to your own uploaded music tracks), and Revenge. Revenge plays similarly to the PS2 cult game Rez in that your ship, now capable of shooting, destroys enemies to a thumping beat and faces off against a boss at the end of each level. This is also the only mode that increases significantly in difficulty the longer you play. With the other three modes, you can gather power-ups to manipulate the number of enemies on the screen, but not the strength at which they shoot, or float, past you. The same enemies you encounter within the first ten seconds of gameplay are the same gang you’ll be blowing up an hour later.
This criticism can lead to plenty of players to quit the game before they die. However, chances are they’ll come back to play again as this game is, and I cannot stress this enough, highly addictive. It’s fun, it’s bright, and light as you blast your way into the billions. Every Extend Extra Extreme is a unique addition to the Xbox Live Arcade library, a simple game that will appeal to the casual gamer with enough originality to extend that extra… extreme excellence to a wider spectrum of players.
Pros:
- Simplistic controls and game objective make this title easy for anyone to pick up and play.
- Bright and vibrant colors pulse to a techno beat, which, for all its beeps and snare drum-inspired explosions, is actually catchy to listen to, especially the couple tracks that sound reminiscent of Lumines beats.
- With multiplayer and online play available, as well as four different single-player modes to indulge in, the game keeps people coming back for quick rounds.
Cons:
- Contains simple gameplay, which both fails to change in difficulty as time passes and can lead to eventual boredom.
- Game is fairly passive in that once you detonate your ship, you spend the subsequent fifteen seconds watching explosions.
- Three of the four single-player modes play almost identically, with the only differences coming in the form of what music is playing in the background and whether or not you can add more time to the countdown clock.
- Achievements are extremely easy to obtain, with most being available to you after a few runs through the Unlimited and Limited game modes.