Over the holidays, I received two new handheld games. This is one of them. For this entry we've got the classic game Space Invaders by Taito. This version is manufactured by a company called Basic Fun, who to my surprise, are located just outside philly, like me. This version was made in 2011.
The game came in a standard, cardboard backed, bubble plastic package. It's listed as being for ages 6+ and requires two AAA batteries that are not included. The design is very cheap but we'll get into the details further down.
It's called the Carabiner edition, for those who might not know, basically this means you can clip it onto your pants, backpack, or whatever. The word comes from rock climbers who use carabiners to latch onto their safety ropes. I guess for a child this would be great but I just can't see myself clipping this game to my leg and heading out in public.
As you can see, the exterior of the game is mostly plastic. Like I said earlier, it's rather cheap. The only metal on it is the screw that holds the battery plate in place on the back of the unit. Just above that you can see speaker holes. On the front you've got the Space Invaders logo at the top, the screen, then below it a D-pad and two buttons. This is actually very telling for a few reasons. The first is that there's really no need for a full D-pad, you can only move right and left in the game. The second is that both buttons do the exact same thing. They shoot. The only reason this would be done is to save money making the unit. By doing it this way, they can use the same plastic shell over and over for different games. This isn't the first time we've seen this on this blog. SongHai does the same thing with their games.
In case you've been living under a rock since the seventies, in Space Invaders the objective is to shoot down endless waves of aliens who are trying to, well, uhhm....invade. On this version it's not endless though, you only fight ten waves. The original trademark for Space Invaders is from 1978, personally I mostly remember it from playing it on the legendary Atari 2600. The game was simplistic and tons of fun back then, and it still is.
Overall, this specific unit does well. It's a great game and worth adding to your handheld collection. However, because of the build quality, I wouldn't expect it to rise in value. This unit is not on the same level as Nintendo's Game & Watch series. It's also not nearly as expensive.
