Retro Psychedelic Fun!

OVERVIEW:
Space Invaders Extreme took the old formula of slow dropping waves of Aliens, and took it to a whole new level! You are presented with 4 main modes:
-Arcade- Play with unlimited continues to beat the final boss
-Ranking- Play one no continues and try to score as many points as possible before using all 3 of your lives
-Stage- Replay any level previously beaten
-Multiplayer- Online and local multiplayer has you destroy waves and send enemies to your opponent's screen.

The game is great for short bursts of play. Levels will probably only last around 5-10 minutes, so you can play it anywhere with no major time commitment.
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GAMEPLAY: (10/10)
You control a ship at the bottom of the screen that can only move left and right and fire at the large group of enemies slowly descending towards you while shooting their own missiles at you.

Unlike the original Space Invaders, Space Invaders Extreme has differently colored enemies. If you aim carefully and destroy the enemies in a certain order, you will earn upgrades to your gun that aid you in destroying the waves of enemies with fireballs, multishot guns, and powerful lasers.

Occasionally a colored flying saucer will fly across the screen quickly. If you hit the right colored saucer, the current game will stop and take you to a certain minigame. You're quickly given a goal of how many enemies to kill and a timer starts ticking down. If you satisfy the goal you will enter "FEVER MODE" which allows you to COMPLETELY OBLITERATE waves of enemies in a matter of seconds.

After 10 waves, you'll be presented with a boss fight. There are 5 overall and each one is very unique and takes advantage of both screens in ways which might surprise you.

The game gets quite challenging towards the more difficult levels and you will find yourself needing to strategically destroy enemies in a certain order to win.
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ATMOSPHERE: (10/10)
The atmosphere is really what makes Space Invaders Extreme an exciting game. This game is very techno oriented. Everything pulses to the beat of the music. Even just watching this game you get absorbed into it.

The developers tried to make it so that you are always on your toes. Things change so quickly and powerups only make the game move even faster. Once you start playing though, you definitely get into the rhythm of it and it's hard to stop.
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REPLAY VALUE: (7/10)
There's 15 levels to unlock altogether which will take up a good chunk of time. Becoming good at the ranking mode makes for a great challenge that could have you potentially playing the game for a very long time. The online matchmaking is fun, but like most other DS online games, it might be hard to find a random opponent after the game has been out for a while. You're definitely not going to get as much gameplay time out of this as you would from a RPG, but for $20 you're definitely getting a great deal.