TGS 2008: Space Invaders Get Even Hands-On

TOKYO--Sometimes a piece of media comes around that shows you a situation from an unexpected point of view. This might be a comic that reminds you that serial killers are people too, a novel that humanises the seemingly inhuman, or, in this case, a chance to see the world from the side of the alien creatures you've been blasting away at since the inception of video games: the space invaders.

In Space Invaders Get Even for the Wii, Taito gives you control of a flying saucer and a small horde of invaders, who are rendered in true retro arcade style, with a number of missions to complete. We had a chance to play only one mission during our time with the game in Taito's booth, but it was enough to get a flavour for the game.

Moving your fleet of invaders with the saucer at the hub is just a matter of using the analog stick on the Nunchuk, and getting your invaders to attack is just a matter of pointing with the Wii Remote and clicking. The action takes place in a nameless city, and the objective was to take out four towers using your invaders.

The city's military try to stop you, but they pose little threat to your pixelated army. If you do lose a few invaders, a quick shake of the Nunchuk and remote replenishes your fleet, and you're off again. Attacks are accompanied onscreen by old-school comic-book flashes of sounds; Kapow! may well have popped up at one point. You get the idea.

Having cleared this stage, we were presented with a boss fight. A brief cutscene showed a large tank-like thing, much like a boss from an old-school shooter, being combined with that great enemy of the space-invader race, the vertically firing laser cannon. The tank has all manner of fearsome weaponry and can actually do serious damage to both your saucer and your invaders. But if you hit certain weak spots without taking too much damage to your control saucer, you can move on to the next stage.

Space Invaders Get Even should be on the way from Taito in the very near future, and we'll bring you more as its release approaches.