Just when you thought it was safe to buy another computer game, the original critters from outer space are back! Space Invaders is here again to drive you nuts and destroy every joystick in sight. Nick Roberts gets out his best trigger finger and shows them what he's made of...

Domark
£9.99 cass, £14.99 disk

What's the greatest shoot-'em-up of all time? Forget glittery graphics and atmospheric sound effects, Space Invaders is the original and best. I mean, what could be more entertaining (and satisfying) than blowing up wave after wave of the same alien, only for the little b'stards to reform and come at you again!

Back in the mists of time (we're talking pre-ZX81 here!), a Mr Toshihiro Nishikado had a yen (geddit?) to create a game to blast everything else into obscurity. The first person to use the microprocessor to give enemies intelligence, he came up with Space Monster, later renamed Space Invaders, a smash hit across the globe.

And now, 13 years later, the game's resurfaced with a few 'Super' add-ons.

PICK UP A POWER-UP!

With basic gameplay well over a decade old, the programmers had to improve on the original concept. They've added detailed backdrops for the aliens to move around on, stacks of weaponry and strange, constantly changing Invader formations.

The extra weapons are essential to wipe out the waves of speedy aliens. Pick up the icons which fall when a certain alien is hit to get a 'Fire Flower', 'Destroy Beam', 'Hyper Laser' or 'Buster Beam'. Some last for only a few seconds so put your skates on!

Every few levels you get a bonus Cattle Mutilation round! Nasty alien types want to cownap your herd and take them to the big steak house in the sky. You can't be killed in the bonus level but can earn lots of bonus points by zapping aliens and saving cows.

FORM A QUEUE!

Technically there's nothing at all wrong with Super Space Invaders. The aliens thoughtfully move around the screen for you to wipe out with your laser gun. Simple. The problem is everyone got bored with the idea a long time ago (everyone in our office, anyway). Gameplay could've been speedier, too.

If you feel you can stay awake long enough, you may find Super Space Invaders quite playable but I can't see any lasting appeal.

NICK [64%]

Here's a real blast from the past! I remember when the first Space Invaders machine appeared in my local arcade, now Domark bring Super Space Invaders, basically the original program with a few extra bells and whistles. Don't get me wrong, I'm not denouncing the game. I enjoyed the nostalgia of frantically wrenching the joystick around, valiantly trying to avoid bullets. One thing lacking from this version are the barriers cowardly players (like me) hide behind. Instead there are shields that deplete as the xenophobic alien hordes hurl myriad bullets at your bonce. For my money, half the fun of the original game was the angst felt as the barriers slowly dissolved under enemy fire. Super Space Invaders looks good: the sprites are neatly drawn and the backdrops picturesque. In short, even though Invaders is as old as the proverbial hills, it's still darn playable.
MARK [79%]

Domark
£9.99 cass only
Reviewer: James Leach

Someone very important once said that history repeats itself. And the weird thing is, he was completely right. I mean, look at Waterloo. That happens two or three times a year on Radio 4. And the Battle of Agincourt is fought every year on the playing fields of Eton. And that bloke walking on the moon. I saw it last night on the telly. History does indeed repeat itself.

And in about 1437, after the dissolution of the monasteries and the wars of the tulips, a Japanese man wrote Space Invaders. It was a bit of a hit in ye olde arcades at the time, but was superceded in 1750 by loads of other games. (Are you sure about those dates, James? Ed)

Now it's back with a vengeance. Super Space Invaders is everything the original was and much, much more. The basic idea (for anyone who's been living under a roof tile for the last 100 years), is that waves of aliens move down the screen blasting away at you. You slide from side to side, shooting up at the aliens, with the general xenophobic idea of wiping them out. If they get to the bottom of the screen (or shoot you), you're dead. And, uh, that's it.

Domark, once they got their sticky paws on the licence, have added a large amount of extra detail. For example, in the old Invaders, they just marched down the screen at you and one blast could kill them. Here, you get aliens that whizz around, take loads of damage, grow or size when hit and generally annoy you immensely.

The battle for the skies isn't that one sided though, thanks to the flying saucer that zips across the top of the screen. Whenever it appears you should do your damnedest to hit it because it drops terribly useful things.

THINGS?

Yes. Powerful weapons, shields, swiss army knives, that sort of thing. If you manage to catch the pods that drop out of the saucer, you could find yourself with smart weapons capable of clearing the entire wave. Now that's what I call music (er, to my ears).

As you'd expect, everything starts off pretty easy, but don't count your chickens, cos after the first couple of waves you'll be struggling. The hardest part is when you've managed to clear all but two or three aliens. You see, as the numbers of invaders gets less, they go quicker and quicker. They whizz from side to side at a fair old clip. You're timing will have to be spot-on to get 'em and you'll only have a couple of chances. Once they get to the bottom of the screen, they'll flatten your bonce as flat as a plaice that's been stamped on.

DOESN'T SOUND TERRIBLY ORIGINAL!

After every three screens, or thereabouts, you go up a level. What happens here is that the background changes. I haven't mentioned the backgrounds before because I didn't want to upset you. But I feel that, as we're a few hundred words into the review, you're old enough to face the truth. The backgrounds are crap. As works of computer art they're alright, but they're the same colour as the invaders. This means that you can see what's going on. Its impossible to see the invaders unless they move over a black part of the background, which makes it the most annoying thing in the world. It's even more annoying than trying to open a carton of milk and tearing it in the wrong place so that it a) spills out all over you and b) pours out sideways when you try to get some into a cup. That's how annoying it all is.

Each level introduces you to something new and nasty. For example on Level Two there are invaders which, when you hit them, double in width. You have to hit them again to destroy them. Unpleasant, eh?

And Level Three sees aliens which, when hit, turn into two separate aliens. It's both frightening and supremely horrid. Luckily, these two aliens die as normal when you blast them.

Super Space Invaders is a bigger and more complex game than it looks. Its fast, fun - and varied. But I can't pretend that the backgrounds don't make some of the levels totally impossible. So it doesn't get a Megagame, but it does come rather close.

REPLAY

What can you say about the galaxy's least crumpety re-release column? Apart from, 'It's just about to start', of course.

Hit Squad
£3.99 (128K only, despite the inlay's claims)
061 832 6633
Reviewer: Jonathan Nash

When you come to think about it, assuming an alien invasion would be directed against us is egotism of the highest order. Take the Super Space Invaders, for example. Swooping down in their shiny death-ships, completely ignoring the people (despite the vociferous protestations of several all-party committees) and making off instead with cows. Ha! That's taught us a valuable lesson in humility. Still, doesn't stop us from blasting 'em to bits with a couple of big guns,

It's funny, but contrary to all expectations, this game works. I was convinced that taking the basic idea and chucking loads of extra features on top would swamp the gameplay, but, er, it hasn't. I can't think of one weak link in the design. There's a two-player mode, a feast of power-ups (that drop from the saucers, but - hurrah! - stay on the ground until you collect them rather than disappearing like those in Arkanoid), a bit of silliness (those cow kidnap levels) and some seriously groovy attack patterns. If you look closely you can spot bits of Xevious (scrolling backgrounds), Galaxians (dive-bombing aliens), Gorf (circular attack waves) and loads of other nostalgia-inducing arcade games. (My fave bit is Wave Two, where the aliens all drop like stones only to bounce back up the screen just before you fall off your chair).

So much for the design. The implementation leaves something to be desired. Speed, for one thing; the game plays like rolling a rock down a hill of treacle. Legibility would be another asset. In an effort to distance the game from its oh-so-simple ancestor the coders have put in over-detailed backgrounds. Devoted accuracy to the coin-op has muddied the playability.

Label: Domark
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £11.99 Tape, £17.99 Disk
Reviewer: Steve Keen

Thump, thump, thump, thump, fizzeuw! The noise still haunts me even today. It's still hard to pass an old Space Invaders machine that's inhabiting the dark corner of a pub or arcade without sticking in a few coins for one last try.

Space Invaders had more than their fair share of copycats too including Gorf, Mega-Phoenix and Galaxians, and it's due to their amazing success, DoMark have decided to add Super Space Invaders as their definitive adaptation of the king of the coin-ops.

The game has 12 levels with each level divided into three waves which incorporate various fighting patterns that have been seen over the years in the other Invaders clones as well as a great deal of original formations.

The aliens move in rows and columns, moving from left to right and back again, dropping down a line when they reach other side of the battlefield. The mothership when hit, drops power-ups ranging from a Buster Laser - destroying any aliens its path to a Fire Flower which wipes out most of the aliens on screen at once. Shields are dropped too and are needed as wave after wave of mutants begin to break free from their patterns and spin downwards, move backwards, expand to twice their size and even split in two when hit. All this and huge guardian ships to combat every three levels as well. Super Space Inva is nostalgia brought up to date.

Unfortunately, the colourful and varied backdrops cause colour clash making it nearly impossible to see what's going on at times and just who's shooting at who can remain a mystery, and sadly, the frequent shields do not compensate for the difficulties imposedon you by this.

However, even with the quibbles that I have, Super Space Invaders is a spot of nostalgia, a cosmic blasting down memory lane that anyone and everyone that played the game in the chippies and videodromes the length of the country would not be disappointed with the end result. I would recommend it to anyone who's after a lasting challenge and a bit of nostalgia who's a real Invader fan.

GARTH:
Wow! Maybe this should be called Super Camouflaged Space Invaders! I'm old enough to remember playing the original in my lunch breaks at Journo school and I'm a little disappointed.

ALAN:
Any game with a simultaneous two player action is worth my vote. The difficulty levels can be set to either Hard, Medium or easy. I recommend the latter if you buy.