Overview

Spaced Out!! II is, as the name implies, the sequel to 2006's Spaced Out!! While the original game was a single-screen shoot-'em-up in the vein of Space Invaders and Centipede, this sequel is a vertical-scrolling level-based affair, complete with cutscenes, mini-bosses and bosses.

Story

During Samuel "Slim" Wexler's first excursion to fight the off-world invaders in 2088, he was responsible for a great number of alien casualties but was injured and his personal spacecraft, the Slim Shooter, was heavily damaged. He spent years recovering and in the meantime, had to part out the Shooter to keep his family financially afloat.

In 2091, the invaders began to show up on radar again. Now recovered but without a vessel, Slim came into luck when his step-sister Amy, now the lead of ground control at the New Zealand Space Agency in Wellington, pulled some strings to get him submitted as an official member of the counterstrike. Now piloting a NZSA fighter ship, Slim takes to space once more in an effort to help save the Earth.

Gameplay

The player's ship is equipped by default with a standard laser and a limited supply of bombs, which are launched slightly in front of the ship and linger for a few seconds, causing high amounts of damage. The ship can be upgraded with power-ups.

• Speed-Up: Slightly increases the ship's movement speed.
• Power-Up/Power Laser: Elongates and thickens the standard laser shot
• Spread Shot: Fires off smaller pellets at left and right diagonal upward angles
• Triple Shot: Accompanies the main laser with two additional lasers
• Option: Creates a drone that fires an additional small pellet. It can be placed above, below, or to the sides of the ship at will using WASD (keyboard controls) or the right thumbstick. The drone "eats" smaller projectiles and can protect the ship from the side it's placed from those projectiles. When placed to the front or sides of the ship, it will shoot upward, but when placed behind, it shoots downward, allowing the player to shoot threats coming from the bottom of the screen.
• Shield: Absorbs a single hit and allows the ship a short period of mercy invincibility after the shield is used up.

Characters

• Samuel "Slim" Wexler - The playable pilot in both this game and the first Spaced Out!!, he is a Māori from New Zealand. He was injured in the events of the previous game, and his ship damaged. He flies a standard issue New Zealand Space Agency fighter in this game.
• Arthur "Bit" Bitterman - An anthropomorphic cat person from the United States, but descended from a race of said cat-people from a place called Campbell Island. He serves as Slim's primary contact at NZSA mission control.
• Amy Wexler - Slim's Pākehā step-sister. Between the events of the two games, she rose up the ranks of the NZSA and became the lead at ground control. She was able to get Slim returned to space to fight off the invaders, officially sanctioned as a member of the mission this time.