Crusaders Of Space Review

I love new versions of classic arcade games, but there's just nothing new about Crusaders of Space -- it's merely a decently vamped-up version of the original.

The objective of this game is the same as every version before it: use your horizontally-moving spaceship and shoot down the enemy ships, which are all moving in a slow and repeating formation. Once you've destroyed enough enemy ships, you fight a slow-moving boss who fires an array of weapons at you, most of which are easy to dodge.

As with the classic, there are power-ups that fall from the destroyed enemy ships, a variety of weapons that you can buy, and a milieu of bosses. The only differences with this game and the arcade game are the cheesy techno music and that there are 100 levels, compared to the original 10 or so.

The graphics are decent (much better than the calculator version I had in grade school), the game is easy to learn and use, and it's addictive in the beginning, but Crusaders of Space quickly becomes boring and is far too easy to win -- I beat the demo on the hardest level in a little over an hour.

Although there very little that's new about Crusaders of Space, it's still fun to play for a little bit while reminiscing about the old arcade version.