Astro Invader and Kamikaze (Arcade Reviews)

Astro Invader
aka Kamikaze
Platform: Arcade
Released in 1979/1980
Developed by Konami
Distributed by Stern (US)
NO MODERN RELEASE

I’d never heard of this game, but it’s featured in the music video for the song “You Got Lucky” by legendary singer Tom Petty in his first group, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. You can have a listen just as long as you SIGN HERE _____________X and INITIAL HERE___X to opt out of any health services for your ears. For everyone else, mute your computer before clicking this link right here. Hello, fellow citizens of Mute City. And it’s just you reading at this point, because everyone who had the volume on is on the floor with blood gushing from their ears after they used the nearest screwdriver to puncture their own eardrums. I tried to warn them but, hey, I already got their page view so f*ck ’em!

One of the first games developed by Konami and the first video game ever published by the legendary Stern, Astro Invader (US) aka Kamikaze (Japan) is also probably one of the first video games with transformative regional differences. I can’t stress enough how the US and Japanese games look the same and have the same concept but play completely differently. The base concept appears like it’s yet another Space Invaders-like shooting gallery, but the twist in the formula makes for a delightfully intense one-off unlike any of its fellow wannabes. You don’t actually get shot back at, as the enemies are just trying to um.. well, you know. I’ll ignore the implications of the title and assume this isn’t alien pilots trying to unalive themselves for the good of the cause. When these totally unmanned spacecraft crash, they explode, but you don’t die as long as you’re not in the blast radius. That brings us to major difference #1. In Kamikaze, the aliens create a great big blast radius that’s nearly as big as half the screen. In Astro Invader, the blast is less than half that. Big difference #2 is that the playfield is different. Kamikaze is on the left, Astro on the right.

Each of the slots fills one bomber at a time, in a left-to-right then right-to-left pattern until the row goes four-deep. At this point, the bombers begin to be released when a bomber enters a row. It’s certainly an interesting idea, as the enemies start off as sitting ducks that, if your aim is true, you can hold off for quite a while before the action starts getting faster than your movement. As you can see, Astro Invader has two fewer slots and red rectangles blocking the slot against the walls. This change has huge gameplay ramifications. In Kamikaze, the left and right most channels do not have a queue, so every “pass” sees bombers enter the playfield and become danger elements immediately. This doesn’t happen in Astro Invader, but it’s not necessarily easier even with the smaller blast radius for missed bombers. With two less slots, the remaining rows fill up much faster. UFOs also enter the playfield, but they’re not a bonus point thing. It’s a secondary danger element in Kamikaze and the primary danger element of Astro Invader, because if a UFO touches the ground anywhere, you lose a life. Now, this is the biggest change in my opinion: in Astro Invader, the UFOs can emerge from the center and from two red rectangles, but in Kamikaze, they only come down the center. So, in this screenshot:

I’m dead. There’s no chance I can get that UFO. It’s one of the most genuinely clever twists on the Space Invaders-like shooting gallery formula I’ve played because it’s not just about raw accuracy. Oh, that matters. Only one bullet can be live at a time. In Kamikaze especially, missing a shot when you’re under a live bomber is all but assured to be fatal. These are both games about screen management. It’s also a game that requires different strategies for each version. You can go all-in on defending one side much more easily in Kamikaze because it’s only the middle channel you have to defend from the UFOs. It feels like a much more pure shooter. Astro Invader’s three channels gives it an LCD-like spinning plate vibe that makes it one of the most intense games to ride Space Invaders’ coattails.

My biggest knock is easily the amount of down time that happens between rounds. Each wave is represented by a countdown on the mothership of how many bombers are left to enter the playfield. When it empties, there’s no pomp & circumstance. The mothership just slowly leaves the screen, then slowly returns, and it’s flow-killing. If this could be cut by 80%, I’d have almost no major complaints. These are fantastic games once you get the hang of them.

I didn’t like Kamikaze at all for the first fifteen – twenty minutes. Thought it was too repetitive and too low on the thrills. It only started to grow on me once I was able to compare and contrast with Astro Invader, which I got into much more quickly. Once I got a feel for the format and especially for the timing of how much time and distance I needed to be safe from bombers I couldn’t or wouldn’t shoot, I couldn’t put this down. You can think of Kamikaze as this concept’s “easy mode” but really, both games are solid and very addictive, with excellent scoring rules. I figured this review would take me an hour or two at most. Instead, I kept jumping between these two games for a whole day. It’s been a while since I discovered an older gallery shooter that did that to me. A couple years, actually. Kamikaze and Astro Invader are shameless bandwagoners, but they’re shameless bandwagoners that now join King & Balloon and Carnival among my favorite gallery shooters. It’s also one of the most underrated statement games from this era. At this point, Konami was still producing and distributing actual bootleg clones of popular games like Space Invaders and Head-On. Astro Invader was their way of saying “you know what? We’re better than being glorified pirates.” Yep. A LOT better, it turns out.
Verdict: YES! and YES!

And I wouldn’t have played these if not for Dave pushing for them. He finds me all the good stuff.