Space Invaders Extreme

Magical Mystery Ship

One recent trend I’m enjoying is the fast-paced and highly-stylized remixes of the classics I loved as a kid. Pac-Man, Asteroids and even Warlords have been modernized with the magic HD brush, but few match the visual evolution of Taito’s Space Invaders Extreme.  Originally released to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Space Invaders, Extreme has found its way on to several platforms, including Xbox Live and PSP.  But it’s on the Nintendo DS that it found a favored home, enjoying great sales, loyal fans and a sequel that recently experienced a deep price cut at GameStop.

Tomohiro Nishikado’s masterpiece was one of the first games to devour my Saturday afternoons as a kid.  Inspired by the tentacular villains of “War of the Worlds” and the vertical action of “Breakout”, Space Invaders had an immediate impact on the world of video games, not to mention the availability of 100-yen coins in Japan in 1978. Industry icon Shigeru Miyamoto — creator of Mario, Zelda and, arguably, modern gaming — considers the game revolutionary and claims he was never really interested in video games before seeing it.  Over the years, Space Invaders has seen innumerable remakes and rip-offs, but it wasn’t until it embraced the remix revolution in 2008, alongside the Wii’s alien-centric Space Invaders Get Even, that it entered the modern age of video games.

Nice Move, Maverick!

Taking full advantage of the dual screen, competitive play and Taito’s paddle controller, the DS versions of Space Invaders Extreme have been the most popular and considered the best by many reviewers, even though the game looks a little better on the PSP.  The XBLA version excels in multiplayer, offering both four-player cooperative and competitive play. Another highlight of the series is the music by Zuntata, Taito’s merry band of musical developers, which enhances the chaos with a techno soundtrack that syncs to your actions on-screen.  The DS version is the only one to receive a sequel, which offered more visual and musical variety, more challenges and a beginner’s mode that allowed unlimited advancement through the game.

From Extreme To Infinity Gene

Even though I love both DS versions and had fun on XBLA, I can’t help feeling that Extreme’s little brother, Space Invaders Infinity Gene for the iOS (and now available on PSN & XBLA) trumps Extreme in portable playability and is certainly one of my favorite games on my iPod Touch.  More of a shmup than a fixed shooter, and also sporting a soundtrack by Zuntata, Infinity Gene has a cleaner look than Extreme, which I particularly like, and offers satisfying amounts of gameplay for an iPhone game. It also plays nice with my music, especially my collection of video game soundtracks, adapting to and changing the gameplay to suit my chosen tunes.  

But whichever platform you choose you can’t go wrong with any of Taito’s Extreme reboots.  If you have a DS, hit up your local GameStop soon because this $5.00 classic won’t stay on the shelves for long.

Disliking the Look of iTunes 10

One problem with changing the style of your products with every iteration, eventually you’ll run out of great ideas and have to settle with something mediocre just to have your new product look different. I’m no expert on modern software design aesthetics but what did they do to iTunes?

First of all, the new logo just doesn’t look like an Apple icon. I’ll have to do a little digging, but I swear I’ve seen a very similar icon on a third party Windows music app. Its not that it’s bad, it just doesn’t look like Apple.

But the interface is what disappoints the most. Monotone can be very stylish, but the new iTunes is so flat and faded that its hard to see on a dim screen, neither edgy or hip. Also, the spacing in the Album Art view is odd. By default it hides album art if you only have a couple of songs, but it still floats the album title left, leaving space to the right, making columns wider and the whole interface harder to navigate. Actually, everything about the interface feels harder to navigate.

Finally, I just don’t know what to make of Ping and will reserve judgement, except to ask “just who is this for?”  I would love to hide it (same with Genius), simplify my sidebar, but its obviously meant to be a marketing tool and will live permanently with the store.

I’ve been using iTunes since the very beginning and have never been as bothered by its design until now. Too much is being shoe-horned into it. Having lots of options is a good thing, but I’d appreciate it if they let the user decide which options were visible.