Though short and bare, Space Invaders Extreme is retro done right- a flashy, challenging blitz.
Space Invaders Extreme, released in celebration of the original arcade game's thirtieth anniversary, looked to make a classic arcade shooter relevant to modern gamers and gaming standards. Space Invaders Extreme sports a flashy presentation with its constant onslaught of upbeat electronic music and backgrounds that are like a light show. It looks slick on the PSP's screen, and the game maintains its retro look by integrating the original sprites and giving them a makeover.
The Arcade Mode contains five stages, but alternate levels can be unlocked for stages three through five, making for eleven total. Enemies come on the screen in groups, and when one set is destroyed, a new flux of foes invade the fray. Destroying four enemies of the same color (except for white) will grant you a weapon: bombs for red, multi-shot for green, laser for blue, and shield for grey.
Power-ups can also be obtained during in-stage challenges which are opened by shooting red or flashing UFOs that occasionally float across the top of the screen. Completing these ten to twenty second challenges will reward you with a weapon and Fever Mode, which will help you rack up points at an insane pace.
As in the original, the spaceship is slow and has no rapid fire. This is only a problem in the game's most difficult stages in which speedy enemies come in droves, some attacking the bottom of the screen in kamikaze fashion. Aside from this, the level of difficulty feels completely fair.
If you do not want to trudge through the campaign to play your favorite level, you can play it in Stage Mode along with other levels you have beaten in Arcade Mode. It is also a good place to practice, for the alternate stages can be extremely difficult. Other than those two modes, there is not much else to Space Invaders Extreme except for an online Ad-Hoc mode. Nonetheless, the game can be found for under five bucks used at Gamestop, and its the type of game that will suck you in for hours and make you want to beat those high scores.