This game has an awesome curve to it. All I knew going in was that it was some sort of evolution of Space Invaders, someone had mentioned that it was sorta like the Pac-Man Championship Edition that I enjoyed a while back. So, I was a bit shocked as the initial load screen and first level are exactly pure classic Space Invaders. Luckily that’s where it all starts to go crazy. The game is loosely based on some “genetic evolution” concept, and as you play you unlock and earn new evolutionary traits. These may be new ships, new options, increased lives, or bonus levels or modes. All pretty much awesome stuff. I found the difficulty curve to be very well tuned, and the game has an awesome pick-up-and-play aspect to it which is perfect on the iPhone. Playing for 20 minutes is just as rewarding as playing for 2, and that’s a key trait that any mobile game needs to have.

The graphics are basically monochrome, save for the occasional gradient in the background, and this keeps the game feeling remotely connected to the original. The controls are where I was really impressed. The entire screen becomes a drag control for your ship, and firing is handled automatically. Additionally, your autofire increases in speed if you remain still, so this adds a bit of strategy to just wiggling around. Later levels have quite a bit of “bullet hell” moments, often found in Treasure shmups or games like Giga Wing. You’ll be blessed with giant bursts of projectiles from the larger enemies and bosses, and you’ll be challenged to successfully thread your ship in between the chaos, while trying to shoot them down. It’s quite challenging, and equally as rewarding. Some of the explosions and boss deaths are really cool to watch, even in monochrome.

The soundtrack and sound effects are very well done. The standard lo-fi bleeps & bloops that you’d expect from Space Invaders, with some upgraded sounds as well. The soundtrack is a nice collection of minimal techno, that instantly reminds me of Rez, even more so when the game reacts to the music as I’ll mention in a few.

The new ship types, excellent controls, and nice pacing make this a fun game overall. I’ve found myself coming back it over and over, exploring more of its depth over multiple weeks, easily justifying it’s $5 app store price tag to me. One of the other excellent features unlocked very early is the Music option. This allows you to choose music from your iTunes library, and have the game react in realtime to the music. The game creates a new shooter in realtime to match the music! I’ve had some impossible games and some very enjoyable games come from some of my recent favorite music, so I found this adds a lot of replay value to the game. There’s hardly any metagaming at all in this game beyond the pure concept of the evolution itself. That being said, this is a very solitary game. There’s not much to talk about or much to compete with in SIIG.

Overall, this is a great shooter on the iPhone, and one that has innovated on controls, graphics, and gameplay for the platform. I’d give it a nearly perfect score if it had some kind of friend leaderboard, or multiplayer. That aside, it nicely calls back to the original in a simple and respectful way, while adding in elements and mechanics from modern shooters. I’m sure many developers will copy almost every aspect of this game and flood the app store with cheap knock-offs. Do yourself a favor, and grab the original.

One Liner: An awesome vertical shooter for the iPhone. Raiden meets Rez, for your finger.
Final Grade:[A-]