Space Guppy by The
Robot Collective, Price: $5
Reviewed May 2003
Developed for the Zaurus PDA, Space Guppy
brings back the old arcade Alien Invader game to a new platform,
sporting colorful graphics with smooth animation and various
new alien faces! Even though the game play in Space Guppy
is very similar to the classic, there are some additional
features that will surprise the Invader vets.
There are eight stages in this game with
a boss fight at the end of each level. The alien formation,
the shield and the saucer should look familiar to Invader
fans. With each level advance, you will see an increase in
the number of aliens and the speed of their attack. When
you wipe out all the waves of invaders, you’ll see
a large guppy dancing on the screen and spitting out suicide
aliens who don’t stay in formation. They will charge
at you in mob and want to take you out with no regard to
their own lives. You need to dodge the guppy and the aliens
to survive while shooting them down. The game is controlled
entirely by the D-pad on your Z. The directional buttons
control your ship’s movement; the action button in
the middle of the D-pad fires your ship’s gun.
The shields in Space Guppy play a bigger
role than the ones in the original Invader games. They act
like shields plus when you sacrifice the shields you get
extra lives and power ups such as space rockets. You can
then shoot the saucer to get more shields and power ups.
There’s one cheat code for those who need additional
fire power. You can find it here,
but you should really try to beat the game on your own.
The graphics are sharp; the animations
are smooth. The alien faces and shapes are nicely created
and you will have no trouble seeing them clearly even when
they are moving at high speed. The Guppy boss is a very nice
touch to add some variety in game play and give something
new to Invader vets.
The sound FX added in the new version
goes well with the graphics and animation, making this
game a complete package for a creative remake title. Space
Guppy supports both SL-5500 and SL-5600. We tested the
game on the SL-5600 and found that it runs smoothly.
Playing Hints and Tips
In the later levels, you need to plan your
positions so that you can get a few aliens to hit the shields
without getting to you. For the cheat code, see our game Walkthrough
board. |
