Day 127: Super Space Invaders (Game Gear)

Making a hypocrite of myself with today's title from my 521 game backlog, I'm playing one game a day, every day, while furloughed from work...

Super Space Invaders for the Game Gear
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

There’s been a shift in the retro game scene over the past few years. What used to be a hobby driven by nostalgia and a desire for a - dare I say - ‘purer’ gaming experience, has relatively recently become more about using hardware and software modifications to bring these old system as close to modern consoles as possible.

This manifests as everything from putting hard drives filled with bootleg games into a PS2, to spending hundreds of pounds replacing the screen in an Atari Lynx with a ‘better’ version. In the course of installing these modifications thousands of original spec units are being irreversibly corrupted and, as a consequence, video game history is being chipped away by people who I’m convinced ever actually play the machines anyway.

It reminds me of the 90’s banger racing scene in the UK. Friends of my brother were into that particular grass roots motorsport and most weekends you’d find at least one of them stripping Ford Granadas, Cortinas, and Escorts down to their shells to be raced until they imploded at a nearby meeting.

Now there’s not really a lot of crossover in the demographics for enthusiasts of classic cars and video games, but if there was someone aware of both, who, even more unlikely, happened to be reading this, you’d feel them wincing, and hear their sobs, from wherever in the world you happen to be right now.

The way I see it: If you want the retro experience then the crappy screens, long load times, cassettes that don’t work, and controllers that are too small are all part of that. Even if you’re not after a nostalgia hit (for which I salute you) the hardware is part of what the games are - by ‘improving’ that you end up with a less effective experience.

And then there’s Super Space Invaders on the Game Gear.

The modding scene for the Game Gear HATES the original screen. Even when new it was a budget level colour LCD. The poor contrast, ghosting, and dark columns it outputs have always been there, but 25 years certainly hasn’t improved the situation.

The most ardent of modders will tell you that the Game Gear Screen is, literally, ‘good for nothing’. This is nonsense, everything I played, before today, has exactly the look and feel I’d expect from hardware and software of this vintage.

Before today, however, I hadn’t tried to play Super Space Invaders. This is a game for which the Game Gear and it’s poor old screen are entirely unsuited. This is game where very small things move very quickly, a game where precision and awareness are key, it’s a game that, frankly, is impossible to play on this system.

This, to use a ‘Gaming the Pandemic’ catchphrase, is a bit of a shame really, as beneath the blurry graphics, almost invisible bullets, and having to hold the screen at a VERY specific angle, this appears to be an interesting update of the Space Invaders mechanics.

I, in the brief time I played, encountered levels in which the aliens behaved like Kalx blocks, falling into the gap left by their comrades, bonus levels that  involved protecting cows from abduction, and stages clearly inspired by the movement patterns of Galaga.

With copies of the Master System version changing hands for around a tenner I’ll absolutely be getting my hands on that as soon as I can, but as for this version, It’s not 100% ‘unplayable’, but it’s close.

Super Space Invaders - Just wrong for this system.