#0006 Space Invaders

We hit another milestone today as we reach “The Golden Age of Video Arcade Games”. That's right, while when and if we've reached the Golden age of console gaming is widely disputed, it is generally agreed that the golden age of arcade games occurred right here in 1978.

As much as pong might have started arcade gaming in the 70's, arcades were still fairly low key, and hadn't yet become a cultural phenomenon. That is, until Space Invaders rocked the scene and took the world by storm.

Developed by Taito in 1978, the game was designed, and programed by Tomohiro Nishikado who designed custom hardware for the game and was one of the first arcade games to have it's own dedicated micro processor. He drew inspiration from games like Breakout, and other media such as The War of the Worlds, and Star Wars. And when the game released was in Japan, it was a HUGE hit like you have no idea. People started closing their own stores to become dedicated Space Invaders arcades. Not only that, but it actually caused a shortage of 10 yen coins that the machines took. The Japanese mint had to make more coins because these machines were eating them at a rate unheard of in video game history. When it was released in the United States by Midway it had a similar effect, to put it simply, it was the SHIT. Overnight video games went from being a quaint fad that the children liked, to being an international phenomenon. It put Japan on the map for being game developers, and proved that video games could be a HUGE hit. Without this game, companies might not have seen a future in arcades and might have continued to make more pong clones, but this game proved that a big profit was to be made in the video game industry, and paved the way for ALL your favorite hits like Galaxian, Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Defender, Pac-Man, Tempest, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Galaga, indeed hundreds of arcade games owe their very existence to this game and it's success. But just what about this game made it a classic today?

Well you play as a weird turret on the bottom of the screen, your job is to fend off wave after wave of alien invaders by shooting them, while avoiding being hit yourself. A simple concept not unlike that of Breakout, but what made this game different was the mechanics. See this is one of the first games to have dedicated music that played during gameplay, those same four notes that played over and over synched up with the movement of the aliens, and as you destroyed the aliens, the aliens got faster, as did the music, the tempo increased from a slow crawl, to panic inducing fast as the last alien tears through your sheilds evading your shots growing ever closer and closer until you can smell the stench of their putrid musk. So close you could reach out and touch their slimy tentecles, but they're just too fast, you can't get them, you're hands start to shake and your palms start to sweat as you try desperately to take at least ONE floating freak with you before all of humanity is killed by an onslaught of Space Invaders.

So! how does this game hold up after 36 years? Good actually. Amazing if you only consider what came before it. Compared to clones such as Galaga that used Spaces Invaders formula, it's very much lacking, but this is the first game on the list that actually had me worried that I might lose, the feeling of dread that comes over you when you realize that you have no chance of winning is something that no other game before this had ever instilled in me. Overall, I really liked it, and I honestly believe that this is one of those games that every gamer should play at least once. It's a surprising amount of fun if you take it in context and I think that if you give it a chance you may be surprised by just how addicting it can be, and maybe understand what it was like to live in the late '70s and experience this for the first time. An online version can be found here at www.freeinvaders.org.

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