REVIEW

AT 5,26; "ZERO INVADERS"

Reviewer: LiBruce
Developer: MatGubbins
Genre: Shoot-em-up
Platform: Spectrum 48K
Language: BASIC

Space Invaders is one of the earliest shoot-em-ups designed by Tomohiro Nishikado and released in 1978.

The player controls a horizontally-sliding laser cannon at the bottom of the screen and the aim of the game is to shoot the rows of aliens moving down the screen towards you and shooting back!

As more aliens are destroyed their collective advance, and the game's music, speed up and defeating a whole 'wave' of aliens simply brings another that is even more frenetic! (Of course, if any aliens manage to reach the bottom of the screen, it's 'Game Over.')

Occasionally an alien ship will fly across the top of the screen and award bonus points if destroyed and the player is somewhat sheltered by defense bunkers that gradually deteriorate as they are hit by projectiles from the aliens and player.

It's a classic high score-based addictive gameplay affair that has been cloned a thousand times and served as inspiration for the next generations of games in the 80s and 90s.

In Zero Invaders the player controls a horizontally-sliding laser cannon at the bottom of the screen and the aim of the game is to shoot... well... nothing.

There are no aliens, no bunkers, no bonus ships, no music, no game over.

Mat has thoughtfully included all the elements to make a killer Space Invaders clone - well drawn player and missile graphics, scores and hi-scores (for two players, even) - but has stripped back the gameplay element just a little too far such that there, well, isn't any.

Well presented and exectuted but crap by (lack of) design? A winning formula!

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