I don’t think I’ve ever played a game quite as hypnotic as Every Extend Extra Extreme. Even reading the title makes your vision go a little blurry. Initially it’s all a bit confusing and weird, but once you understand what’s being asked of you, you’ll just keep on doing it indefinitely. Every Extend Extra Extreme Every Extend Extra Extreme Every Extend Extra Extreme…

E4 - as I’ll refer to it from now on - is quite a simple game really. You control a spaceship which you can detonate at any time, killing your enemies in the process. Each opponent blows up, triggering a chain reaction around the screen. The more ‘chains’ that you get, the higher your score and the more elaborate the fireworks are. Crashing into an enemy ship causes you to die, but you’ve got a shield for the first few seconds after each explosion, which gives you temporary invincibility. Power-ups float around as well, and collecting these can increase your score multiplier, enemy speed, available time or refresh your own shields. The gameplay’s simplicity makes it ideal for an Xbox Live Arcade title and it’s one that you can pick up and play without little forethought.

Keeping with the quaternary theme, E4 has four singleplayer modes. The Game Time Unlimited goes on indefinitely until you run out of time, while The Game Time Limited is exactly the same, but the objective is to get the highest score in a given time. Wiz ur Musik taps into the music on your hard drive and creates randomly generated wire-frame visuals. Finally, The Revenge is a more conventional shooter, where you have to zoom around shooting enemies and defeating bosses, Asteroids-style.

“Once you understand what’s being asked of you, you’ll just keep on doing it indefinitely”The game’s clean, psychedelic visuals combine well with the pulsing electronic soundtrack, creating a mesmerising atmosphere. Explosions flash on the screen, shooting around as the background turns multicoloured in a somewhat trippy lightshow. There’s some variety of visuals and sound between stages, but none within them and this is where E4 stumbles.

As hypnotic as it is, once you get into the second hour of gameplay, it all gets a bit boring. With enough power-ups, your score will just keep on racing up into the trillions until you get fed up. It’s fairly easy to keep your available time around two minutes in the Unlimited mode and getting a higher score is more a case of endurance than skill. There’s an online multiplayer option, but this is essentially a high-score competition and therefore one that the player with the shortest attention span will lose. You’ll also have a hard time finding anyone else to play, at least I did.

Every Extend Extra Extreme is a visually striking and addictive game, but one that won’t appeal to everyone. There are several modes and the ease of scoring big will keep you playing, but once you realise that it’s simply a test of stamina, you might find yourself a little disappointed. That said, you’ll be very tempted to keep going back for more, even though you’ll know exactly what’ll happen. Those who have played the previous games will no doubt enjoy this one as well, but for the merely curious, this is one to try before you buy.