On Reflection

A more recent addition to XBLA, Every Extend Extra Extreme easily trounces a majority of the competition and that includes some older XBLA shooters that we also labeled as ‘the tits’ back when there was nothing better around. We’re looking at you Galaga.

The Score

There’s a glut of superb shooters available on Live Arcade at the moment and wouldn’t you know they’ve just been joined by another one. The rather spiffy Every Extend Extra Extreme.

A bizarre cross between a shooter and a puzzler, EEEE, like Space Giraffe before it, mixes oldfashioned gameplay and trippy visuals in order to create a title that instantly stands out from other Live Arcade games.

The main game sees you exploding your ship in order to take out clusters of enemies, which in turn will hopefully cause a chain reaction to boost your score. Destroyed enemies will leave behind various coloured jewels that can extend anything from time to your score multiplayer. What’s clever here though is that it’s now possible to stop chain reactions meaning that there’s now a significant risk and reward factor. Do you go for the big chain combo or do you stop it so you can quickly nab those jewels and extend your time? It’s very clever and works brilliantly.

Add in a time attack mode, the fact that you can play along to your own music and a Geometry Wars-style Revenge mode and it soon becomes obvious that a lot of thought as well as another E has gone into Q Entertainment’s latest release.

Throw in a selection of mesmerising tunes and some eye-catching visuals and the end result is another direct hit for Microsoft’s online service. Let’s just hope people actually buy it, as you’re really being spoilt at the moment.

8 out of 10