Sunday 17 February 2013

Unique Games: Every Extend Extend

OK, OK, I've been very lazy recently with my blog writing, and I've hardly wrote anything for the week. So allow me to tell you about a unique game on the PlayStation Portable called Every Extend Extra...


Published by Q Games, the guys behind Lunines on the PlayStation Portable. Every Extend Extra is a very unique game that plays somewhat like a bullet hell sh'mup, but not quite...


Let me explain to you what's happening in this video, it's very hard to explain what's happening unless you actual play the game. but the idea behind Every Extend Extra (I'll just call it EEE from now on, too many words beginning with "E") is that you move a bomb around the screen as enemies appear in groups, as you close in on an enemy, you press the X button to detonated the bomb, and you kill the enemy on the screen,  however you'll lose a life too. But that enemy will explode too, and it's explosion range can kill off other enemies, causing a chain reaction. The bigger the chain reaction, the more points you earn, the more lives, called extends, hence the name "Every Extend Extra". The game is simply about timing explosions right to rack up huge chain reactions to earn lots of points and lives, however there is a little more to it than that. There are power up that need to be picked up, you'll notice in the video above that there are white, green and pink enemies. These are your basic enemies, the white enemies are the most common, when you blow them up they don't drop anything. Blowing up the green enemies will drop green crystals, these give you bonus points. Blowing up the pink enemies will drop pink crystals, these earn you a "Quicken", which allows you to move the bomb quicker across the screen, but in turn will make the enemies move faster too. However in each stage, there's a unique "Larger enemy", simply called a mini boss. Mini Bosses can shoot lasers at your bomb, causing you to loose a life without detonating. but if you blow up a mini boss, they drop a yellow crystal, which give you more time on the clock when collected.


At the end of each stage, there's a boss themed around the style of the level. The boss shown above is very much like a carousel, a carousel with KILLER LASERS! It attempts to lure you inside and zap you with lasers, but the idea behind the bosses in this game is to get them caught up in chain reactions from exploding grunts; and the more explosions it get caught in, the more damage it does. In this case, the killer carousel is made of two halves, and you'll have to take each one out at a time. Though once one is gone, it'll go into a shooting frenzy, and you'll have to dodge bullets and wait for a good chance to get the second half caught in a huge chain reaction of explosions.

Let's say you don't want to play this game on the PlayStation Portable. You either don't own one, and/or you'd rather play it on a big screen. Well you're in luck sunshine! There's a sequel made on the Xbox 360's Live arcade called "Every Extend Extra Extreme", or "E4" for short...


The Xbox Live arcade game is a little different to the PlayStation Portable game as there's bosses or level progression, it's all about building huge scores in an near endless game. The gameplay is identical to it's PlayStation Portable counterpart, except there's now a new rhythm game play element added to it. There's a bar on the bottom of the screen that pulses, this acts like a metronome, the idea behind this is that when you detonate your bomb at the apex of the metronome bar, you earn a multiplier on top of the points you earn from your chain reaction. Adding to the rhythm elements of the game, you can add your own music to the game, where it will find out how many beats per second the song is, and builds the metronome bar around the musics beat.

But there's one very good and insane reason to own E4, it's crazy leaderboards! You might think hitting a million points in a game is good, heck hitting a billion points is god-like. Think again... Trillions of points! Adequately called "The Trillionaire's Club", this is one hell of a leaderboard! This makes Twin Galaxies look like a Cub Scout group! Sorry if that might offend people, I love the idea of Twin Galaxies, but when you have scores in the trillions, it's a totally different story! Last time I looked, the person at first place scored something on the lines on thirty three trillion points! That's insane! It's a pure gaming marathon score that, and I would love to have three days to myself with no interruptions just to see if I could beat that score!

If you're interested in getting these games, you can get the PlayStation Portable game new as low as £2.95 from the Game Collection website!


You can download Every Extend Extra Extreme from Xbox Live Market Place for 800 Microsoft Points.


Alternatively, if you're one of those types who want all their games to be on physical discs. No fear! There's a collection of Q Entertainment games on one Xbox 360 disc called "Qubed". Though to be honest, it was released in limited numbers, and very hard to find, therefore people like to hike the price up a bit for it!


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