Space Raiders came out in the US on Gamecube, but the rest of the world also got it on PS2. It's a spinoff of Taito's seminal Space Invaders, borrowing its core concept and gameplay while changing the perspective to a behind the back/tilted perspective and ramping up the action and violence. It begins with a lengthly opening movie full of death and destruction before dropping you into what amounts to a single screen arcade experience.
There are two main modes of play: Story and Survival, but both play with the same view and controls. Story, of course, lets you play out the personal events of one of three main characters through six stages comprised of several enemy waves and a boss. Survival allows for two player cooperative play, challenging players to see how long they can last and set high scores against wave after wave of alien invaders.
The basic control is simple, allowing for a basic shot, grenade, and a dive roll that serves as both a short evasive maneuver and a melee attack should enemies get too up close and personal. Eschewing the organization of the original Space Invaders (which is unlockable on the disc), there are several different types of invaders, ranging from plant-like monsters to possessed corpses to insects, humanoids, and more. Each has unique attacks of its own, such as vomit, spores, and even bullet patterns that look like they came out of a vertical shooter. Thankfully there are powerups like extra grenades, life (you have a life bar), a doppelganger that fires alongside you, super speed, and rapid fire.
Still, Space Raiders is either very hard or very easy depending on how you play. If you're willing to just feed credits, you blow through the game in around an hour without breaking a sweat. However, if you're a one credit player, it can be frustrating, as bosses can soak up a ton of hits, grenades are in short supply, and your movement is a tad sluggish. Having a life bar helps, but your dive is very short, so you have to really learn the enemy patterns in order to play at a high level.
Space Raiders is flawed, but it does have a nice, simple arcade flavor that can make for a fun ride from time to time, and there's hardly anything like it on Gamecube. It may not be the genius sequel that Space Invaders Extreme was, but it has fun, campy sensibilities, almost as if Space Invaders had a baby with Earth Defense Force 2017.
Played it?