If you ask me, the Space Invaders have already won.  They first took all of our money back in the 70s with the original arcade game.  And now, they’re making us stand outside looking like fools with our cell phones in Space Invaders World Defense.  It’s a mobile game (reviewed on iPhone here) that uses Google mapping and AR technology to zap the iconic blocky aliens in real world surroundings!

Two things to know first.  One is that you can’t play this game inside!  It just won’t let you.  And I also could only get this one to work in the daylight.  It wouldn’t work for me at night for some reason.  Anyway, so once you are outside in the daylight, you stand in one place and turn around and tilt your phone until you find your spaceship.  Then you can turn and tilt your cell phone in all directions and tap on the screen to zap the aliens.  You are given a little radar at the bottom to tell you where the aliens are.  So you must turn and tilt to find them.  They might hide behind a building or something, so watch out.  Once you destroy aliens outside for a bit, you go to the aliens’ dimension and the graphics change to be more vector line based, and then you can control and shoot using the touch screen.  Just watch out for oncoming bullets.  And once you shoot enough aliens in their own dimension, you go back to the first mode and do it all over again until you run out of energy.  You can post your high scores to a leaderboard and even take a pilot selfie.

It’s an interesting idea, but there’s not much to the game itself.  More of a novelty thing, really.  I wish they let you just stand stationary and not have to turn all around, though.  Also a game can last a pretty long time, especially since you are outside standing and turning around all the time.  Not very fitting for a quick pick up and play cell phone distraction.  And the game is held back by all the limitations.  I don’t know how well this game would work if you live out in the country, for instance.  Seems that you need some houses or buildings nearby.  But the game is free so if you’re curious, downloading it won’t hurt you any.

Kid Factor:

Nothing too violent or objectionable here.  You just shoot blocky aliens that explode into pixels when defeated.  Some parents may not be comfortable with a game that reads your location, or has their kids standing outside not aware of their surroundings.  There are no ads or in-game purchases I could find, so I don’t know how they’re making money with this.  If this came out when I was a kid, I would think it was pretty cool, though.  But parental supervision is still recommended.

Tags: Game Reviews