DS/3DS Release Dates & Sales // Tiny Cartridge Stickers For Your Games!

Space Invaders and Darius Burst cases for iPhone 3G/3GS. These are actually arcade prizes, but NCSX is selling them to those of us not lucky enough to be near a Taito Station arcade, and not lucky enough to, you know, actually win prizes from those damn crane games!

I’m pretty excited to see new accessories for my phone, since I’d expect any new things to be iPhone 4-shaped. At $26 each, though, I’m going to decide just how excited I am.

See also: More Space Invaders junk!

tags / taito / case / accessories / space invaders / darius burst / ncsx / jc

/ permalink / / 1 year ago / Comments (View)
Space Invaders Business Card →

Taito has released a free iPhone app that allows users to create Space Invaders-themed virtual business cards and trade them with other iPhoners. The app lets you choose your invader sprite and color, add whichever personal details you’d like to the card, and even recommend a Taito iPhone title in the corner of the card. Then you trade cards wirelessly by sliding the image toward the recipient. 

I’m looking forward to handing out lots of Invader cards to other nerds at E3. I’ll pretend I like them because the virtual card system is greener than distributing paper, but mostly I like them because of a combination of goofy gimmickry and having pictures of Space Invaders on them. Considering that not everyone will have an iPhone and this app, I’m sure I’ll still have plenty of excuses to brandish the Spelunker card case.

[Via @brandonnn]

tags / space invaders / taito / business cards / iphone / jc

/ permalink / / 1 year ago / Comments (View)

Space Invaders umbrella. Apparently, Taito is lending these out from its arcades in Japan starting today, with a 30-day lending period. Would people really return these? I’m not sure I’d be able to.

tags / space invaders / taito / jc / umbrella

/ permalink / / 1 year ago / Comments (View)

“Intruderchron” clock. Modder Dataman started with the already neat Pong clock kit from Monochron, and put new software on it to make it display Space Invaders-inspired graphics.

If you want to replicate the effect, you can get the clock kit for $80 (!) and the code for free.

[Via technabob]

tags / space invaders / clock / dataman / intruderchron / jc

/ permalink / / 1 year ago / Comments (View)

I spotted these Space Invaders adorning what I believe to be a local community center while checking out some parts of my neighborhood that have yet to be explored yesterday, located on the corner of West 182nd Street and Audubon Ave (my neck of the woods is the far northern tip of Manhattan, known as Washington Heights). Good thing I had my camera handy!

Guest post by Matt “Fort90” Hawkins

tags / space invaders / guest / fort90

/ permalink / / 1 year ago / Comments (View)

“Proud,” “Berret” and “Bincent” fighting with toilet paper roll limit meters.

I’m a huge fan of “guro” illustrator Shintaro Kago, though given both the salacious and gruesome nature of his work, I never thought in a million years that he’d ever be featured here at Tiny Cartridge. But lo and behold, the comic above, which is part of his toilet paper roll dispenser series. Even crazier is the fact that the whole series is totally SFW! Trust me, the vast majority of his stuff is as far from safe as can be.

It’s also rare for Kago to reference video games. The only other example that I personally know of can be seen in Blow Up (NSFW, per his usual standards), one of his more famous comics. It plays around with the medium’s format, something that helped to put him on the map initially (at least here in the States). The following is from very late in the story, and I hate to be a spoiler, but am going to do so anyway because 1) even by itself, it’s visually compelling 2) the story doesn’t even really matter in this particular comic’s instance 3) it too is SFW! Click for a larger version.

Guest post by Matt “Fort90” Hawkins

tags / fort90 / guest / shintaro kago / final fantasy vii / space invaders

/ permalink / / 2 years ago / Comments (View)

Mega Drive and Space Invaders card cases from Banpresto. GeekStuff4U is selling them for ¥2,250 ($24.70) each, which is kind of steep for a business card holder, unless you happen to be in a position to trade cards with nerdy dudes all the time. Like if you’re a game developer or a Pokemon CCG champion. They’re due to ship at the end of March.

The Mega Drive one is obviously great, because it looks like a tiny, flatter Mega Drive, but how cool is that red Space Invaders one?

See also: My Spelunker card case that I’m totally not bragging about at all

[Via technabob]

tags / business card, / banpresto / card case / mega drive / space invaders / jc

/ permalink / / 2 years ago / Comments (View)
Space Invaders Extreme Z for DSiWare →

Without any advance notice, Taito released Space Invaders Extreme Z, a 500 Point version of Space Invaders Extreme 2, to Japan’s DSiWare service this morning.

This downloadable version retains all the gameplay features of the retail game — Bingo, Fever, etc. — but is still noticeably different, according to Andriasang:

“The game now has just two modes: time attack and score attack. The notion of ‘stages’ is now gone; you can play on three courses of difficulty level, each featuring different invader formations. The game also limits you to your initial three lives.”

With G.G. Series Wonderland, Z.ONE, Aa Mujou Setsuna, and now Space Invaders Extreme Z on DSiWare, this now makes four shoot’em ups available on the Japanese service! And, um, none in the U.S. (Europe has Zombie BBQ).

Buy: Space Invaders Extreme 2 ($19.99)

Buy: U.S. Nintendo DSi (White, Pink, Black and Blue)

Import: Japanese Nintendo DSi (White, Black, Pink, Red, Lime Green, Metallic Blue)

tags / space invaders / space invaders extreme / space invaders extreme 2 / taito / space invaders extreme z / imports / ec

/ permalink / / 2 years ago / Comments (View)

Space Invaders Extreme 2 report: My God, it’s full of moe!

Remember our expose on Space Invaders Extreme 2 that revealed a strange moe figure with a ridiculous, oversized hat? Reader Jksprat investigated the phenomenon with an import copy and found that the “Invader Girl” permeated every variant of the game’s final stage! You can read Jksprat’s in-depth report below:


Stage 5-A: The first sign of things were a little fishy was when I noticed this stage had reused assets from the very first stage of the game. I got rid of most of the Invaders and took a good look at the moving cubes: a cute 8-bit Invader Girl spinning around in the cubes! … You can see her best at the upper right behind the “[bingo] lights”.

Stage 5-B: This once more reuses assets from Stage 2. The background movie is a continuously looping zooming out of 2D graphics. … Invader Girl’s head is here, and we can see her trademark ginormous hat is based on a bear.

Stage 5-C: [This] is based on both Stage 3-x.  This time it’s a little 3D model of Invader Girl spinning upwards. In Stage 5-C on Extreme difficulty (which will thoroughly emasculate anybody attempting it, by the way *cry*), it uses the Invader Girl stage again but with a slight change… ;3


Taito and Square Enix haven’t restricted the moe character to the game, either. Invader Girl appears on the cover of Zuntata’s Space Invaders Extreme 2 soundtrack released last month. Also, representatives gave out exclusive stickers of Invader Girl at Summer Comiket. The stickers featured the character without her hat… and in a bathing suit.

Space Invaders Extreme 2 releases in the U.S. this week, presumably with Invader Girl intact (stop giggling, pervs). I’m sure most of you forgot it was coming out so soon!

Buy: Space Invaders Extreme 2 ($19.99)

See also: Incredible Space Invaders Extreme 2 trailer

[Thanks, Jksprat!]

tags / space invaders / space invaders extreme / space invaders extreme 2 / moe / taito / square enix / jksprat / ec

/ permalink / / 2 years ago / Comments (View)

Forgot about Space Invaders Extreme 2

How is it that Space Invaders Extreme 2, a title near universally praised by importers and the follow-up to one of last year’s finest games, has received hardly any attention leading up to its Stateside release next week?

Are gamers upset that this is a DS exclusive, while the original Space Invaders Extreme also came out for PSP and XBLA? Perhaps they skipped SIE and consider iPhone’s Space Invaders: Infinity Gene as the series’ definitive portable revival? Maybe people are just burnt out from Space Invaders’ 30th anniversary and the overload of releases/merchandise?

While I believe those issues factored into the lack of hype for the sequel, I believe it’s more to do with the fact that Taito-parent Square Enix has done nothing to promote the game in North America since last May. It wasn’t until last night, five days before it’s scheduled to ship SIE 2 to stores, that the company remembered to alert others about the game’s official U.S. site and new videos.

So, I’m doing my part to push the game by reminding you it’s priced at only $19.99 and by uploading these two fresh preview clips. Enjoy this online multiplayer bit:

Along with the new moe mascot and time attack mode, SIE2 introduces new wave patterns, backgrounds, bosses, music, and more. Fever Time segments also now take place on the top screen and run concurrent to normal gameplay. As for the new Bingo system, I still don’t understand it.

Preorder: Space Invaders Extreme 2 ($19.99)

See also: Incredible Space Invaders Extreme 2 trailer

tags / space invaders / space invaders extreme / taito / square enix / space invaders extreme 2

/ permalink / / 2 years ago / Comments (View)
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Invader Disco YMCK FC+Arcade Mix” short sample from Space Invaders Extreme 2 -Audio Element-.

Taito’s sound team Zuntata put out this CD in Japan last month featuring music from the DS game along with a few mixes from other artists. Here’s another remixed song preview from Japanese music collective Norishirocks (with Pepper Shop’s visualization of the album’s cover):

Can you believe Space Invaders Extreme 2 releases in the U.S. in less than two weeks? How did that sneak up on us? Don’t forget to buy a paddle (only available in pink)! Unless you have a DSi. In that case, yeah, forget about it.

Preorder: Space Invaders Extreme 2 ($19.99)

See also: More Space Invaders Extreme 2 media, YMCK

tags / space invaders / ymck / space invaders extreme / space invaders extreme 2 / taito / square enix / zuntata / norishirocks / chiptune / pepper shop / soundtrack / ec

/ permalink / / 2 years ago / Comments (View)
“I wanted to introduce Space Invaders to these younger gamers, and decided a good way to go about it would be to create a single game that traced the entire evolution of the shooter genre, from the original Space Invaders up to the latest advancements in the genre.”

— Space Invaders Infinity Gene director Reisuke Ishida, speaking to FingerGaming. Ishida seems to have succeeded in his stated goal: the game certainly does feel like it gradually evolves from Space Invaders into a more contemporary “bullet hell” type game.

Preorder: Space Invaders Extreme 2 ($19.99)

tags / space invaders infinity gene / space invaders / taito / reisuke ishida / iphone / jc

/ permalink / / 2 years ago / Comments (View)

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