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This is the only screenshot you need,
because this is the entire game.

They’re Invading Your Space

Ah yes, Space Invaders. Space Invaders.

Most of the games I review for this blog were made after I was born, but this is one that precedes even my own dusty self. Not the very first arcade video game, but the first one that was massively successful, and paved the way for future games — Space Invaders was released in 1978, initially in Japan but soon expanding to North America and other countries.

The premise and gameplay are simple, yet hold up remarkably well even today. You control a “laser base” with simple controls — you can move left or right, and fire a laser up the screen. Above you, beyond the defensive bunkers, rows of alien spaceships patrol from side-to-side, dropping bombs. Both your own lasers and the alien bombs will damage and erode the bunkers, and getting hit by a bomb spells instant death to your laser base.

Each time the aliens reach the side of the screen, they drop down by one vertical level, then begin moving in the opposite direction. Your goal is to defeat the, ahem, invaders before they bomb you to death or reach the bottom of the screen. The more of them you destroy, the faster they start to move, making them increasingly more difficult to hit. In addition, a red mothership UFO will occasionally fly across the top of the screen — shooting it grants bonus points.

Once a wave of enemies is defeated, the next wave begins — as the levels progress, they start moving faster and begin closer to the bottom of the screen, increasing the challenge. Your goal is to simply rack up as many points as you can before your inevitable defeat at the hands of these merciless alien aggressors.

In Conclusion

Despite being the first widely-successful arcade game, I’d honestly say it’s aged excellently. The controls are crisp, the graphics — while not flashy — certainly do their job, and the gameplay loop is a simple yet enjoyable challenge. The game’s audio is extremely basic, but serves its purpose well enough. The slow yet sinister background “music” as the aliens approach, increasing in tempo as they speeds up, adds some great tension and a sense of urgency to the experience. Still, compared to other retro gaming options, it’s incredibly plain.

Here’s a fun fact: The original game actually had a monochrome display. The green laser base and bunkers, and the red UFO at the top of the screen, were simulated using transparent, coloured plastic on top of the screen. Here’s another: The reason the aliens speed up when there’s not many left is because the original hardware was slowed down by rendering all the sprites, and when there were fewer to render at a time, it was able to do so faster.

The coin-shortage story that often accompanies mentions of Space Invaders, though? Probably not true.

There’s honestly not much else to say about this game, but if you’ve never played it before, it’s well worth a try. Simple it may be, but easy it is certainly not.

The Verdict