My, how things have changed since the original Space Invaders debuted more than thirty years ago!  Looking back, the game seems so simple, it's hard to believe it was a national obsession.  Move your ship beneath aliens, push the fire button, repeat, that's all there is to it.  When Space Invaders Extreme was released on Xbox Live Arcade, I knew I had to get it for nothing more than nostalgic purposes.  I was curious, too, at how my kids would react to it.  In this era of open world gameplay, realistic 3D graphics, and cinematic storytelling, would young gamers get bored too quickly? The first test was to see if the kids would be interested when I was playing.  After school one evening, we all went our separate ways: one kid to feed the dog, the other to his room to play with his toys.  I fired up the Xbox 360 and started up Space Invaders Extreme.  The walls started pounding in time with the deep bass of the EXTREME techno beat.  I quickly turned it down before things started falling off the walls.  (Anyone else notice thatSIE is louder than most other games?)  Even just a few seconds of the loud music was enough to get my youngest son running to investigate.  He immediately perched on the couch, entranced by the hypnotic action.

Read More