GENE THERAPY: TAITO BRINGING SPACE INVADERS INFINITY GENE TO IPHONE
Back in some of Offworld’s earliest days I mentioned an obscure addition to the Space Invaders family tree: Infinity Gene, a vector-sharp retro-future take on the series made specifically for Japanese mobile phones (as below). The then-recently-announced DSiWare seemed a logical choice for the game to eventually move to, but Taito have just got in touch to let me know they’re taking it in a different direction: the iPhone.
And that’s perhaps the better move it could’ve made, so as not to compete against its own Extreme brothers, though they are quite different games. Where Extreme kept you tethered to that X axis, Infinity Gene will let you — from what I understand so far — move your ship around the screen at will via touch controls, and, as above, comes equipped with a new rapid-fire laser that puts it much more in keeping with later arcade shooters than the original Invaders.
Infinity‘s true evolution, as its name suggests, happens by collecting the gene clusters seen at top right which will, at times, break you out of the action and bring you to a new evolution screen that informs you which new capabilities or weapons you’ve unlocked. And its enemies have evolved as well, with new impenetrable shields (seen top left), new weapons, and massive screen-filling bosses (my favorite bit of the video, apart from the terrifying Zuntata score: ‘A HUGE ENEMY — “The Moon” — BREAK INTO THE BATTLE’).
Taito says the game will be available “in the very near future”.
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