Space Invaders: Infinity Gene

Invading the Android market today.

People are trying to make a Space Invaders movie.

Darwinning action.

The official website for Space Invaders: Infinity Gene has been updated to say the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade versions will be out next month.

The excellent Space Invaders Infinity Gene is on its way to PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade according to the latest issue of Famitsu.

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change." Charles Darwin.

The quotation that opens this, the latest reinvention of Taito's most venerable arcade classic, does more than establish the game's overarching theme of evolution. It's also justification. For the first time in 31 years, a game bearing the Space Invaders name allows players to move up and down the screen as well as across it. Orthodox gamers steady yourselves: this is the first of the series' defining rules to be broken by this plucky upstart of an iPhone game, but it's far from the last.

It's clear a selfish gene has driven its development, steering it with rare clarity and purpose, but also with a brazen disregard for tradition. Nothing is sacred. In addition to the 1x1-pixel pea-shooter of the original, you now have a clutch of different weapon types to choose from. The eponymous invaders no longer march down the screen in tidy, staccato-shuffle rows, but instead sweep around in hyperactive, Galaxian arcs. No more is the challenge one of everlasting survival, the experience is now broken down into distinct stages, each with a start, a middle, an end and its own high-score table.

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