Post a Comment On: Catholic Video Gamers

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The original Space Invaders was one of the first video games I ever played. Before I ever had the privilege of owning any video games (we’re talking wayyyyyyy back in the day, folks…), my parents would frequently make visits to my grandpa’s house, where he would graciously drag out his trusty Atari 2600 game console (equipped with a very old Texas Instruments Computer), for my perusal. While this naturally facilitated exposure to a smorgasbord of classic video games, no game captivated me more than Taito’s Space Invaders.

My brother and I would spend hours defending earth from those extraterrestrial invaders, and it always seemed to be an exercise in futility: eventually, the invaders would get their way. No matter how many evasive maneuvers we employed to dodge the alien assaults, despite our quick reflexes with our “trigger fingers” (which quickly turned many a spaceship into virtual cannon fodder), we couldn’t keep the hostile hordes at bay for more than 2 levels. We had fun, anyway.

Craving a bit of nostalgia (and hearing some positive buzz from some fellow gaming fans), I ran over to my local Gamestop yesterday in hopes of finding the newly-released, modern-day re-imagining of this iconic franchise, Space Invaders Extreme. I’ve invested some playtime into it, but I won’t elaborate on the finer details now, as I still need to spend some more time with the game before a final verdict. Nonetheless, I think it’s safe to say that this game retains everything that made the original so memorable and influential – with the caveat that some of the additions to both the presentation and the core gameplay itself make SIE a substantially different game than its predecessor.

I’ll probably post a “player diary” of some sort for this game either tomorrow or Saturday. St. Catherine of Siena and all holy men and women, pray for us!