The iPhone's best neo-retro game: Space Invaders Infinity Gene
Taito's reimagining of its arcade classic is absolutely worth its $4.99 price.
- Nearly 20 years writing about tech, and over a decade reviewing wearable tech, VR, and AR products and apps
While Taito has already released an iPhone port of the original Space Invaders, we'd recommend you slide past that and buy, instead, a spectacular revamp that launched this week on the App Store by the name of Space Invaders Infinity Gene.
As you'll quickly see from the trailer above and gallery below, this shooter is Space Invaders in spirit and design, but in execution it's a full-fledged arcade onslaught of power-ups, boss battles, and a thumping techno soundtrack that pulses along perfectly. This isn't Taito's first reinvention of Space Invaders: its
Infinity Gene is a port of a Japanese cell phone game, with more minimal line-drawn graphics than Extreme. The title screen is actually a direct port of the original Space Invaders, before transforming into a start menu that consists of a branching level tree. Based on how you perform across dozens of levels, new weapons variations and options will become unlocked. Your ship can move all across the board, unlike the original Space Invaders, and while your ship autofires, your finger can drag anywhere onscreen to move your ship around. This keeps your digits from getting in the way of the finely rendered artillery attacks.
One of the most exciting new features, something that extends the life of this title to the near-infinite, is Music mode. You can pick any song on your iPhone or iPod Touch to play along to, and Infinity Gene generates a unique level matched to your music. I'm not sure what the secret sauce is to this mode, but I took some screenshots to show what levels were created for some of the tracks that live on my own musically cluttered
Infinity Gene is available now for $4.99, and it's easily one of the best neo-retro experiences on the iPhone yet.
