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Extreme seems like an odd, almost desperate, choice of subheading for a game which is older than a fair proportion of its target audience. Like an accountant with a ponytail or a headmaster with a Harley, it smacks of a misguided attempt to deny the march of time and prove that the oldies can still cut it with the kids. At least the marketing team resisted the urge to resort to ‘cool’ spelling; I’m not sure I could’ve brought myself to play Space Invaders Xtreme at all.

I generally find it pretty difficult to get excited about retro compilations and rehashed ‘classic’ video games. Sure, there are plenty of older games that have stood the test of time and still merit playing today, but paying for old games in new packaging smells awfully like profiteering rather than emergent software design. The PSP has been well served with this type of release, in the form of attempted rejuvenation (Frogger, Sonic, Alien Syndrome), bulk-buy compilations (Capcom classics, the EA bundle, Mega Drive collection) and plain old re-releases (all the past final fantasies, Sid Meyer’s Pirates!), and whilst some have been moderately successful  they hardly suggest cutting edge gaming. It was with some trepidation, then, that I prepared to fight off horizontal lines of pixelated aliens...

Taito have chosen the 30^th anniversary of the original space invaders to launch their 2008 interpretation. The grandfather of shoot-em-ups has been jazzed up with graphical trickery and a cheesy techno soundtrack, but the objective remains the same- shoot all the enemies before they reach the bottom of the screen. Your path through the game is determined by a branching level tree, reminiscent of the route map used in Outrun (another recently rehashed oldie), and although the game is pretty short, the challenge (as always) lies in beating previous high scores and level rankings.

 Changes from the original extend beyond presentation- the destructible shields have been dropped, and a variety of alien types and defensive weapons have been introduced to bring some variety to proceedings. Everything works as you would expect, and the general impression is of an accomplished attempt at rejuvenating the original; levels become suitably tense as your enemies descend, and the action is (initially at least) pretty addictive.

For me the big problem is this; despite all the add-ons this is still a 30 year old game, and all the extra bells and whistles can’t hide the simplicity of the concept behind it. Whether you consider this a good thing or not will largely be down to personal taste, but with the breadth of the PSP game library I’d certainly think twice about buying- it isn’t even the only space invaders game on the console either, sharing inspiration with space invaders evolved from 2006. A budget price tag (about £13) is a welcome concession but can’t hide the fact that there are plenty of free online versions of the original to feed those on a nostalgia mission (www.freespacinvaders.org being a particularly good example). All this leaves Extreme feeling faintly pointless, despite the efforts to spruce things up and introduce a hint of variety.

I’m sure that for some gamers (likely those of a ”certain age”), Extreme will become a firm favourite, and it certainly does a solid job of taking the original idea and introducing some new elements to the mix. Whether this is enough to hold your attention for long will rely on your love of the original, and your patience. For me the package is just a bit too lightweight, even for a portable arcade title, and whilst it never really does anything wrong there just doesn’t seem to be enough to it to demand extended play.

Score: 6/10 

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