Space Invaders Gets Ultra-Sized Multiplayer Arcade Game To Celebrate 40th Anniversary

It's hard to believe that Taito's Space Invaders is 40 years old this year. The game originally made its arcade debut in the late 70's and became an overnight sensation, with millions of players keeping those dastardly aliens from taking over the Earth.

But now the publisher is ready to take world invasion to a whole new level, as it's introduced a huge version of the game in Japan for up to ten players to partake in. Prepare...for Space Invaders Gigamax!

As originally reported over at Arcade Heroes, the game has been introduced as a limited edition attraction at the Laguna Ten Bosch resort in Gamagori, Japan, which is a little bit southwest from Tokyo. In it, players can take part in the game, paying 500 yen a pop as they work to get the highest score against other players, all while blasting aliens that continue to pile up on the screen. You can get a peek at the game and its concept in the video below.

Earlier this month, Tomohiro Nishikado, the creator of the Space Invaders saga, took part in the celebration and played along with fans. Though he's not there now, it definitely looks like it's worth checking out...especially if you were wondering how competitive Space Invaders worked.

Sadly, the game will only be on display through July. After that, it's unknown what will happen to Gigamax. But considering that Taito is still arcade savvy after all these years, we've got our fingers crossed that the company will give a smaller version some consideration so that arcade-goers can enjoy taking on one another. For that matter, a home release certainly wouldn't hurt either.

You can get an idea of how Space Invaders Gigamax's gameplay works in the video below. Is it frantic? Yeah. But it looks like it's as fun as hell.

There's also an official page with more details. They're in Japanese, but you can probably use Google Translate if you want to read up more about it.

Happy 40th anniversary, Space Invaders! Now, if you could give us a breather for a minute while we replenish our ammunition...