retro space shooters

I know a lot of old school gamers were feeling pretty nostalgic when they learned that Space Invaders would be returning to arcades in its original state. The cabinets are being manufactured and distributed by Namco at $2,772 US apiece, and they plan on selling 10,000 of these. A bit optimistic in my opinion, but it's still kind of cool to think that present-day gamers will have the chance to pay homage to a game that helped shape an industry.

We've come a long way since those green-on-black pixelicious graphics. But if you still crave some modern, low system requirement space shooter action, Moonpod Games has an excellent Asteroids clone called Starscape. I played that for a while earlier this year when the boys at PA were advertising them. It's not a bad time waster, but you have invest a lot of time before it actually becomes interesting to play. The initial missions are of the tedious debris-destroying variety, and are mainly intended to build up your resources so you can upgrade your ship. Once you get past those though it's a great throwback to the button-mashing space shooters of old.

Another company that's putting out the same kind of gaming is Kraisoft Entertainment. On this month's PCGamer CD they included a demo of the highly addictive Alien Sky. This is basically a mixture of Space Invaders and Galaga with some updated graphics, that manages to look exceptional at a meager 800x600. However if you must try one of their games, I highly recommend Astrobatics. I wasn't a fan of reverting back to keyboard bashing for Alien Sky, so controlling my ship using only the mouse in Astrobatics was most appreciated. This game takes its cues from Gradius, Nemesis, Lifeforce and R-Type - side-scrolling space shooter classics. If you don't want to deal with the hassle of shareware, but still want a nice looking Asteriods clone, the kind programmers at Kraisoft have made the extremely low-tech Trashkiller 2 a free download.

I keep meaning to mention that I saw Return of the King this weekend in this sudden profusion of posts. Although just a tad long, I enjoyed it immensely. It provided a fitting end to this absolutely magnificent series. I think Mr. Jackson needs to be commended for his utmost respect for the source material (despite his many subtle deviations). I'm currently writing a full review, so look for it sometime soon.

is it chemically derived?