Game of the Day 3/10/2016: Space Raiders

[celerystalker]

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?

[Steve W]

I have the GameCube version. It's an odd choice for a Space Invaders tie-in, even considering that the original design document for Space Invaders was for enemy troops to march towards the player who's hiding behind cover. The designer thought that might not be accepted very warmly, so he turned the troops into airborne aliens, and history was made.

I shot through it in about an hour. I only played a single character, although I did watch the cutscenes for the female character mainly because I was confused by the age rating on the package that stated there was mild nudity in the game. I honestly have no idea where they got that from, the characters seem to all be fully clothed (although the female character is a little... top heavy... as often happens with Japanese artwork that never takes physics or real anatomy into account).

[celerystalker]

I have the GameCube version. It's an odd choice for a Space Invaders tie-in, even considering that the original design document for Space Invaders was for enemy troops to march towards the player who's hiding behind cover. The designer thought that might not be accepted very warmly, so he turned the troops into airborne aliens, and history was made.

I shot through it in about an hour. I only played a single character, although I did watch the cutscenes for the female character mainly because I was confused by the age rating on the package that stated there was mild nudity in the game. I honestly have no idea where they got that from, the characters seem to all be fully clothed (although the female character is a little... top heavy... as often happens with Japanese artwork that never takes physics or real anatomy into account).

There's a shower scene in the opening movie, which is surprisingly long. You don't see anything really explicit, but you see everything else.

[Niku-Sama]

maybe the censored the gamecube versions shower scene?

[celerystalker]

maybe the censored the gamecube versions shower scene?

Not sure. I only have the Japanese PS2 version, which is all english in the menus and voice acting, by the way. Anyone able to confirm if it's in the US Gamecube release? It is during the pre-title screen opening movie.

[Emperor Megas]

Hmm; hang on, I'll check...

Yep. It's in there. I just fired up the Wii for the first time since the servers for Mario Kart Wii went down (the one at home anyway...I use the one at work every day for Netflix). Man, it's been so long I forgot which channel on the receiver the Wii was set to.

Anyway, I watched the very lengthy intro video and yeah, there's a shower scene. The VERY endowed female character is showering but the boob view is covered by her arm.

I distinctly recall purchasing this game the first time I saw it because I had a feeling it would have a low print run. I didn't think it would be expensive, just probably hard to find. Well, I don't think it's either so I could have picked it up whenever, but it was only 20 bucks when it was brand new. I should get around to playing it now that I've actually loaded it up. Maybe this weekend.

[Steve W]

Luckily it won't take you too long to play it, like it's been said already it only lasts for about an hour.

I only bought the game for the Space Invaders link. And it seemed like a budget title, being $19.99 new, so I wasn't expecting much. And I got what I expected.