“Invaders! Possibly from space!”, exclaimed Leela.
“People of Earth, I am Lrrr of the planet Nintendoo-64. Tremble in fear at our three different kinds of ships!”, said the alien leader as if it were a statement of fact.
“Alright. It’s Saturday night, I have no date, a two-liter bottle of Shasta and my all-Rush mix tape! Let’s Rock!!” Fry looked up at the alien horde and then got down to business. Listening to Rush’s Tom Sawyer Fry managed to start blasting aliens by moving his giant war vehicle left and right with arcade like precision.
Meanwhile in the lead alien ship, The second in command possibly Lrrr’s wife shouts, “We’re losing ships sir! What are your orders?!” “Increase speed, drop down, and reverse direction!” shouted Lrrr in reply!
Fry continued to blast the alien retinue.
This is what it was like to play Space Invaders. Yep. Okay maybe not exactly, but still funny none-the-less. That’s all the alien ships did, drop down, reverse direction, and increase speed. There wasn’t even color except for some overlays on the monitor. All you did was shoot these aliens that streamed down, as every once in a while a flying saucer above the alien formation would slide across the screen give you a chance for bonus points. Actually Space Invaders is quite addictive even though it’s as simple as it is. Supposedly the game was so popular in Japan it caused a coin shortage over there. In any case there have been countless sequels, clones, and rip-offs of the game yet it still continues to fascinate the public.
One such clone, is not really a clone, so much as “inspired by” Invaders, maybe inspired by Galaxia, and Galaga, as well. It’s called Titan Attacks by Puppy Games. The same guys who gave us Ultratron. This time they bring the same retro-goodness. Blocky, glowy characaters, a rockin’ soundtrack, and a way to upgrade your ship. First it starts out like other Invaders type games. But then it has a few extras. Some times a ship that has been shot will fall down, and you can shoot it for more bonus points as it’s coming down. Sometimes aliens will parachute down to the grand and you must capture them for extra points or get penalized for letting them escape. The mystery ship or flying saucer above will drop power-ups if you hit it. Then as different waves happen you’ll see different new ships and different attack formations. It will just start getting heavy. In the full game there is around 100 levels in 5 worlds. This is retro-style gaming at it’s finest, and yet very fresh.
To move you simply use your arrow keys or mouse, and left ctrl or left mouse button to fire. There are also smart bombs that can be released with the Spacebar. You need to buy these however. Which leaves me to ship upgrades. You have speed, weapon power, smart bombs, and a few other things I don’t remember. You basically get cash either as bonuses in the game or when you finish a wave. You can then buy your upgrades. The only little issue is I couldn’t seem to be able to navigate the weapons upgrade menu with the keyboard, but instead needed to use the mouse. And it’s further annoying to have to switch back to keyboard in game because the mouse just seems to slow to play the game with. That’s probably the only con out of the whole game.
The graphics have a stylized look that is supposed to remind you of days gone by with blocky graphics and what not. These are blocky, but stylized and not because the graphics are limited. There is plenty of eye candy in the form of particle effects, glowing, blinking lights, pixelated backdrops, etc. I mean this game just oozes style, not unlike it’s predecessor Ultratron. Well I’m assuming it’s the predecessor, it might be the other way around. In any case you can’t go wrong with this. The soundtrack fits in nicely with techno-ish music. The sound effects are appropriate as well.
Final Analysis: Probably a better game than Ultratron, but still both are great. Great retro style and fun game play. You should try it out. It comes in Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux flavors.
Name: Titan Attacks
Developer: Puppy Games
Price: $19.95 USD (also €14.74, £13.00 )
Where you can get it:
| Download the Windows PC Demo | Download the Mac OSX Demo | Download the Linux Demo |
| Buy the full Windows PC version | Buy the full Mac OSX version | Buy the full Linux version |
Tags: addicting, fun, game, games, independent, Indie, linux, mac, Puppy Games, retro, retro styled, review, reviews, Shooter, windows