"Super Space Invaders" (Game Gear)

A great Game Gear release of the popular space-shooting arcade game. Presents a whirlwind of challenges and tough, but fun, boss fights.

It may be as old school as you can get with shooting games, but its challenges still holds up to this day. However, being ported to an "okay" handheld during its day ought to make you think twice. On the Game Boy port of this series, it's just the regular Space Invaders, so what's so "super" about this?

Being that this is for the Game Gear, the game is in color—gorgeous sprite art all over. The opening music for the title screen is as "video game-y" as you can get, knowing that in front of you is a video game and not a musical score to some blockbuster film. You're then greeted with a menu screen titled "Maverick 6 Control," in which Maverick 6 is the name of the fighter you're controlling and shooting with. The menu options are self-explanatory, however during our gameplay, even Normal mode is difficult enough to be played under.

After the options screen, you get another menu screen which are images of the missions you're able to choose. The fact that you only see the images and not the name of the mission kind of makes you wonder. However, from our experience, enemies and bosses on the left are different from missions chosen on the right. We've gotten used to the behavioral pattern of the enemies in missions listed on the left, so although we can say that that's the easiest, it really depends. As the game title says, "space invaders," evil aliens that have invaded space, it is your goal to eliminate any invader that moves. At the end of the missions, you're greeted with a boss fight.

To describe the gameplay, the controls and the graphics as "retro" is an understatement; This is as classic as you can get, yet it's a shame games like this don't get marketed and advertised to give more attention to Game Gear games (compared to Game Boy). While Sega's library is heavy on sports, and its Game Gear didn't sell as well as the Game Boy, doesn't mean there aren't any good games it offered: Behold Super Space Invaders. We feel this is the perfect game to commercialize to modern video gamers wanting to venture into the world of retro.

As with most games, you're finally fighting the big, main boss. What's odd was when the spaceship attacks its beam from the center body, it doesn't actually hurt you. We're not sure if this is a glitch or anything but it makes the final boss fight that much easier: Just dodge its projectiles and bullets and you're home free! Unlike most retro games during this era, it has an ending and we hope you enjoy it despite the tough fights this game has to offer!

While it was set to have a perfect score, the final boss was questionable given its beams didn't attack you. What a challenge it would be if it did! Nevertheless, we don't see why you can't pick this game up and play.

"Wait a minute, Kris, why no gameplay clip on your review?"

Glad you asked because we present to you this:


This game is now the very first game to launch our "Gameplay Videos" section here at VIDEOGAMESOTROS per KC Universal Network. We finished with a final score of 220,950. Click the image, watch and enjoy the gameplay, then see and pick up the game for yourself!

Kris Caballero

Founder and operator of KCU Network, Kris has been writing since he managed a personal blog created back in late 2005. Despite publishing articles and reviews from time to time for the network's website, Kris enjoys studying the sciences, namely Math, playing old video/DOS games, reading non-fiction books and listening to sports radio.

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