I had wanted to choose Tale of Tales – The Path, or Ian Bogost – A Slow Year, but one is due to being a horror game for my weak heart, and one is due to I cannot find it anywhere being free. That leaves me with three choices that I really don’t want to partake in. Pacman, it is done and done, too much people would have choose it, I had always prefer indie games anyways. Super Meat Boy reminds me of I wanna be the Boshy, which, would only frustrate me to no end, even if the level has considerably more mercy than IWBTB.
That only leaves me with Taito’s Space Invaders. Oh how I dreaded the game. I couldn’t tell if I was having fun, all the moment I was just blasting aliens away, and not really caring too much about dodging. I had even deliberately take out my own shield just so I could shoot the aliens properly. But ultimately, I don’t personally enjoy game for pure scores, it is deemed nearly meaningless to me. The process was tedious, no upgrade no recovery of shield. You simply have to go on and on until you can no longer continue on. Some would aim for that certain high score, and by setting that as a goal, they have the motivation to keep trying. For them, that in itself is a type of fun, where you are driven towards achievement of some sort. In this case, you are competing with your own self, to reach that objective you’ve given yourself. But if I’m not interested in getting that certain score, how about simply try and see where I can go? For me, endless play isn’t the best type of fun as well. Too many games out there to try, all things comes to an end, whether the game developer set one or not. Koster’s fun doesn’t seem to apply here, at least not in the literal sense, not to me.
And then it hit me (with the pun intended), that this game, for me, is the type that matters in the progress, not the endgame. Not that it has a solid one. Undeniably, I did get more and more adrenaline rush no matter how much I deny it. It came from moments where I got to evade numerous bullets while trying to get a good shot in. As soon as I got down to only a few aliens, every time they descend, their movement speed also increases. Slowly, that rush and excitement is cranking up, maybe, am I having fun?
The music might have aided in the adrenaline rush, however irritating it can be. With ever closing of the aliens, the music beat increases. Faster, faster, and faster as it goes, the mind, receiving the signal from the ear drum, urges the body to move faster, to reflect quicker, to press on that button and shoot them all down.
As far as background story goes, It lies within the imagination of the player. As the title of the game says: “Space Invader,” one can already come up with a narrative about how someone, perhaps a space soldier, is trying to drive away the aliens that are trying to invade our home world.
The government set up space shields 
that protects citizen of Earth and fighter’s space ship. but the aliens were too strong, one hit from them the shield would disintegrate into nothingness without possibility to regenerate.
So instead, the government trained a super soldier, whose mission is to fly to the front line, and fight off the aliens. With the help of the shields, the super soldier is able to gain a few moment of breathing time until all the shields are gone. They would send resource to the soldier in space periodically every time the
solider successfully drive away a wave of alien. But the soldier is only human, battered and bruised, the soldier fight till the very last breath. But one mistake is all it take. The space ship explodes, gone, along with the soldier that is never to be found. The aliens persists their assault, but this time, the government is prepared. A whole army of super soldier is in the making, and they are ready to be deployed.
With all this in mind, Space Invader might not seem like a fun game at first, but if you are looking for space where you can insert your own story, and be the hero of the story, while shooting down countless alien to defend your home, at the same time to compete against countless other people. Try Space Invader, the world needs you! And…
Soldiers, are you ready?
Video Games and/as Art 