I never thought I’d have as much fun as I had saving the Earth from an evil flying fish tank with lasers!

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One of my favorite parts about the portability of the Switch is that games that I wouldn’t normally spend a lot of time playing on my TV get massive amounts of attention while I’m just relaxing around the office, or at home. This isn’t saying that the games are bad, it’s just when I play on my TV I’m looking to invest time into games with deep stories and action packed gameplay. This is normal for a lot of gamers, and it leads to gems slipping through the cracks. Double Drive Games’ Invasion of Alien X: Earth in Crisis is one such title that may not look like much, but offers hours of incredibly addictive gameplay!

Plot

The premise is rather simple, aliens are on a terrifying Earth Invasion Tour and you need to stop them! You must fight off menacing enemy space ships that deliver hordes of enemies that look to destroy the Earth; and did I mention the enemy ships come in the form of fish tanks, zombie heads, etc.? To help fight off the waves of invaders, drones will fly through the map that allow the player to collect turrets. While the concept seems simple enough, the execution of the defense is where the game becomes tricky.

Gameplay

What makes the game challenging deals with how hectic the game can become out of nowhere. Levels start out with just the enemy ship and you, but quickly changes as they begin to drop of waves of enemies at different spawn points. Though the waves aren’t particularly difficult to deal with, they tend to come in large groups that can easily overwhelm you if you don’t take care of them quickly. To help you fight off the waves of enemies, you can shoot down drones that fly across the map that offer canons to help defend the Earth at the center of you map. Though the drones, like the waves of enemies, are not a challenge it becomes a game of strategy where you must decide how you plan to succeed. While the early maps don’t require too much planning, later levels require you to be quick in your planning, or else you’ll see yourself overrun by evil aliens in no time. The game does offer a vortex weapon that can help you fend off the waves of enemies, however you only realistically get one shot per run as it fails to recharge in a round.

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Presentation

Aside from the extremely fun gameplay, the presentation complements the game well. While the visuals aren’t anything that will win an award, the style just works for the lite gun game. The environments look unique per level in a block style that looks simple, but not cheap. This is meshed with a soundtrack that fits each level, and actually is kind of catchy to listen to outside of the game also!

The Downside

While Invasion of Alien X is a fun game, it falls into the trend of gun lite games that tend to become stale in a short amount of time. With a playtime of 2 hours in total, I finished all but two levels in the game; and while it doesn’t feel like a waste of time, I don’t see myself going back through it any time soon. While the game does have rankings for each level, without a leader-board to see how I stack up the, rankings feel like nothing more than a glorified participation trophy.

Overall

Invasion of Alien X: Earth in Crisis is an incredibly fun title to pick up to kill some time, and the price point is definitely appealing as well. With only a few flaws, the game more than makes up for it with addictive gameplay, a wonderful presentation, and an overall easy to pick-up and play gun lite for the Switch!

THE BREAKDOWN

PROS:

• Incredibly fun gameplay that’s easy to pick up and play.
• Soundtrack is whimsical and addictive.
• Enemies are comical, and enjoyable to face off against.

CONS:

• The vortex weapon has a refill meter that takes forever to recharge.
• Gameplay can become repetitive after completing the game once.
• Level ranking feel irrelevant without online leaderboards.