I had the pleasure of playing Space Invaders Extreme 2, Square Enix and Taito's latest entry in the three decades-old shooter series. The game was released for the Nintendo DS at the end of last month. Where do I begin to describe a series that just about everyone in the gaming world is familiar with?

First, this is Space Invaders. You're a little ship. There are other little ships on top of the touch screen that you need to shoot down. There are UFOs that scroll buy and give you more points. It's Space Invaders.

Well, it is like Space Invaders if certain invaders had special attacks. Some split into more ships when shot. Others have shields that need to be destroyed. Others drop their shields on you at high speeds. Others have timed shields that reflect shots back at you. Some are made of metal and take more hits to destroy. Some drop to the bottom of the screen and instant kill you unless you shoot them first. So, it's Space Invaders, only extreme.

It's more like an extreme Space Invaders and Dance Dance Revolution had a baby, and Capcom vs. series announcer decided to hang out and do commentary. Expect moving, pulsing, colorful backgrounds zipping by at all speeds. Expect lots of brightness and scenery changes and an insane electronic music backing. One level's soundtrack sounds like something out of a techno remix of an anime theme. I must say, the background effects can be turned off if getting motion sickness isn't your cup of tea.

The announcer, and the backgrounds while a bit much, add to the fun of the game. There is nothing quite like having every stage end with being called a maverick by an enthusiastic person. Add all this to intense gameplay, and you have a winner. Being the DS, they make you watch both screens. The way this iteration of Space Invaders works is that, you not only do have to shoot the enemies but also, you can shoot the same color enemies in a row to get power-ups. Explosive shots, penetrating lasers, widespread wave shots. As you do this and get larger combos, you can unlock mini-games in the top screen. Mind you, these go on during the main game, so you're shooting at two sets of enemies at once.

Doing these tasks unlocks fever mode, which is an excuse to crank up the insanity and give you a ton of extra points. Do this enough times with different color combos to complete a 3x3 BINGO board to unlock EXTREME FEVER mode, which turns the dial up to 11. All this ends up leading to huge boss fights spanning both screens, the later ones filling up the screen with projectiles, smaller enemies, homing shots, and everything else.

Playing through the game unlocks different stage paths, and completing them all unlocks even harder levels. Everything is controlled simply with left and right on the control pad and either A or B to shoot. One trouble with the controls is that the L and R buttons can be used to hold off on using a power-up. However, the X and Y buttons are not utilized at all. I feel that perhaps an option should have been included to give the X and Y buttons the same functionality as the L and R buttons, as they are personally out of my reach.

In terms of accessibility, this game cannot be played one-handed. You can play through without ever moving your fingers off the D-Pad and A button, though. Therefore, the game has that going for it. In addition, the game can easily be played without sound because it has no audio cues whatsoever. However, as I mentioned before, shooting color combinations is a large part of gameplay, and the colors of the ships are red, blue, green, black, and white, all small and indistinguishable from each other in any way besides color.

Unfortunately, the only way to describe this game is to say that it has annoying graphics and music. At times, the difficulty makes me want to hit my head against a wall. It has wireless multiplayer, Wi-Fi leader boards, and a decent if not generic versus mode. In addition, your laser noises change depending on the music to best fit in with the song Moreover, an option to add customizable buttons would've gone a long way towards accessibility. However, at the same time, even when wanting to give up and escape the swirling pink cube backgrounds and upbeat electronica, I still end up playing it for hours at a time. Because this is ultimately a fun game, despite its flaws.. Long story short, pick up Space Invaders Extreme 2 if you like Space Invaders and ridiculousness.