Space Invaders

This is a milestone in gaming, which captivated imaginations of many people: It tells of an interstellar war where you shoot lasers, but are also constantly under threat by the ever-hurrying alien invaders from all sides, and have to get rid of the enemies while keeping your head cool. The weighing of options in this game is a major source of fun, determining the pattern of how you'd annihilate the invaders, hiding behind diminishing barricades, and wondering if it's worth shooting for the bonus ships. Well famous for popularising arcade shoot em ups and space games, which would later spawn things like Galaxian and Galaga.

Out of all games released in the Atari era, this is the one that holds up the best nowadays. Its not an amazing game, but its a cool timewaster for the most part, which is a much better statement than i could say about other games released at the time. The main differentiator really comes down to the level design. Instead of having a static gun like Sea Wolf or Air Sea Battle, you are given control of a tank that can move sideways. This means that besides focusing on shooting the incoming alien ships, the player must also be able to dodge incoming missiles or use the cover available. The other aspect of the game that makes it so revolutionary, is that the waves of aliens get progressively faster as the time ticks along. When a alien ship manages to touch the ground its an instant game over. This means that the usual dynamic of the game is games starting easy and relaxing, but towards the end the rise of intensity and difficulty makes this one a really fun experience.

The arcade version is much superior to the ugly atari version.

I was peripherally aware of Space Invaders for some time through the late 1970s - I mean, wasn't everybody? I first saw a machine at the local shopping mall. It was a stand-up cabinet adorned with very exciting graphics on the outer panels. I watched a couple of guys play and the concept seemed fairly straight forward. They played on the machine for a long time too. Should be a piece of piss then. Now finally it was my turn. No joystick - only buttons for left and right and another to fire. The lack of joystick didn't strike me as odd then (how could it?), but looking back it was a bit bizarre.

Although I had watched other people play it, my first game was doomed from the start. The buttons moved the ship in a manner that was much faster than I was expecting. I remember firing a lot of shots in between the columns of invaders, but landing a blow on precious few aliens. I panicked, I was shit, and my stockpile of lives withered faster than a spring daisy in ammonia. My mother was with me. "You're hopeless" she said, like she was some kind of expert.

The greatest thing about Space Invaders is that you can actually get invaded. This is something that future space shoot 'em ups utterly failed to latch on to - no matter if it was your first life or last, once that last scampering bastard wiped its arse along the ground (much like your Alsatian dog after a good night on the curry) that was it. GAME OVER. Sucker. Give me another coin.