Another version of Space Invaders (sense a theme in my reviews?). This one takes the original concept behind Space Invaders - shooting upwards at advancing aliens and goes a few steps further with new power-ups, aliens, etc. The power-ups are really cool. They range from a bullet that shoots through an entire row of aliens to double or triple shots, which can hit more aliens with one shot. At the end of each 3 levels, there is either a special "bonus" screen, where you try to shoot aliens before they pick up your cows or a boss stage. Bosses are bigger aliens that take more hits to defeat and shoot stronger weapons at you.

The graphics are nothing special, in fact, they haven’t been updated much at all, but the backgrounds are nicely drawn, which makes getting to new levels more rewarding. And the cow bonus levels are hilarious.

There’s something in this title for everyone. Space Invaders purists can play the game without picking up the power-ups and those that are new to the Space Invaders library (are there any people like that) get a good game to play with cool power-ups and interesting twists over the original. If you want to play this title and don’t have access to a Master System version, you might want to look for the Genesis (Space Invaders ’91 is the same basic premise, with slightly updated graphics and more weapons) and Game Gear versions of the game, although both are pretty difficult to find.

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