Download and Play Return of the Invaders

If you've played Space Invaders, then you should have a pretty good idea of how to deal with this close encounter. Once again, you control a gun base (Xerovy) and try to shoot down an alien fleet before it reaches the planet's surface. But this time, the little green guys have quite a few more tricks up their extraterrestrial sleeves.

This Week's Grand Prize

In addition to some cool GameTap swag, this week's grand prize winner will also receive this extremely cool Space Invaders compilation album:



This compact disc features various artists creating new music that features sound effects from the original Space Invaders games. The album is import-only, and pretty rare and expensive. I'm sorely, sorely tempted to crack open the shrinkwrap and give it a spin, but I've resisted so far.

The Scores to Beat

The all-time high score for Return of the Invaders, as recorded by video game referrees Twin Galaxies, is 1,060,600, recorded August 20, 1985 by Italian competitor Marco Marroco (who also holds the #2 all-time spot for Capcom's SonSon!).

GameTap's Leaderboard is completely dominated by jasonqcom, who holds all ten all-time spots.

Bounty Time

I find this leaderboard domination unacceptable, people, so I'm offering a bounty: if anyone can top the all-time score for Return of the Invaders during the course of the tournament, which has been set since December of '06, I'll up the ante. Not only will you get the import CD AND the GameTap swag, I'll also throw in an entire year of GameTap Gold. If you're already Gold, I'll extend your membership. If you're Green, I'll upgrade you.

Get practicing, the prizes this week are better than ever! Here are the official rules:

1. Contestants will have from 6 a.m. EST to 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday, May 5, 2008, to submit their scores to the leaderboard via the GameTap client.
2. Only the top score per TapID will count toward the contest, with all other scores being thrown out.
3. Only one TapID per household will be eligible.

Not a Gold user? Not a problem! Return of the Invaders is available on GameTap for free, so absolutely anyone can compete! And not only that, the game is available for both Windows and Macintosh users, because we are awesome like that.

Again, the tournament starts on Monday, May 5, 2008, at 6:00 a.m. EST. If you need help posting Leaderboard scores, check out the handy guide the next post down. Good luck everyone!

Download and Play Return of the Invaders