Space Invaders

Unleashed in Japanese arcades way back in June of 1978, Space Invaders remains one of the most memorable and influential games in videogame history.

Space Invaders was the brainchild of Toshihiro Nishikado, who programmed and designed the game for Taito of Japan. Back in those days, it wasn't at all uncommon for one lone designer to create all aspects of a coin-op game. In fact, most of the games of this era were solo endeavors. Nishikado supposedly based Space Invaders on a dream he had involving Japanese schoolchildren waiting for Santa to appear in the sky on Christmas Eve. But instead of Santa, row upon row of aliens slowly descended in from Venus, threatening the city. So the clever kids cobbled together a laser blaster using a car battery, spark plugs, and a hubcap. Moving left and right, they used it to blast the aliens out of the sky, saving the Earth from certain doom.

When Aliens Attack

Space Invaders gameplay is very simplistic and primitive by today's standards, but it did pioneer a couple of very important features. If you've never played Space Invaders before, the original plays a little something like this: 48 space aliens, divided into six rows of eight move horizontally across the screen. Once an invader touched one side of the screen, the aliens would descend one row, bringing them closer to the player's tank at the bottom of the screen. The goal of the game was to trade fire with the aliens, avoiding their shots by moving from left to right, ultimately killing all of the aliens on the screen. The more aliens you killed, the faster they descended. And as each wave progressed, the green barriers the player used for cover would eventually decay into nothing, leaving you even more vulnerable. After killing all the invaders, you'd move on to the next wave, with the waves becoming increasingly difficult as you progressed. This style of gameplay is already very familiar to anyone who's ever played a space shoot 'em up, from Galaga to Gradius, but Space Invaders was really the first of its kind.

Besides introducing entranced audiences to this new style of gameplay, Space Invaders brought a few other newfangled ideas to the table. The graphics and sound were very impressive for its time, thanks to animated aliens, color graphics (thanks to an overlay), and a pulse pounding "heartbeat." But Space Invaders greatest legacy is that it is generally credited with introducing the world to the concept of the high score. Most games of this period had set time limits or went on forever without ever changing, but going for that high score in Space Invaders was an incentive to keep playing. Although Space Invaders didn't allow players to post their initials yet, it was still a big deal at the time.

The Invasion Begins

When the game was an instant hit upon release in Japan. It was so popular that it caused a severe shortage of the coin needed to play the game. So popular that entire arcades opened up which featured nothing but Space Invader machines. Midway immediately snapped up the American licensing rights to Space Invaders and by October 1978, the game was already a blockbuster hit. The game was everywhere, and could even be found in places that didn't traditionally have arcade games, like pizza joints and Laundromats.

In 1980, Space Invaders was released on the Atari 2600. It had the honor of being the first arcade game to be ported to a cartridge-based home system, and helped sell thousands of 2600's. Other ports, sequels, clones, and variations of Space Invaders inevitably followed, the most recent version being Activision's Space Invaders remake, but no version had the same appeal or impact as the original.

$500 Million = Lots of Quarters

The original Space Invaders brought in over $500 million for Taito, making it, even today, one of the most profitable and successful games of all time. Its impact on the videogame industry was widespread and its influence on game design and gamers undeniable, making Space Invaders a more than worthy entrant into the GameSpy Hall of Fame. Die, Aliens, Die!

- Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen

[The GameSpy Hall of Fame inducts a new game every Tuesday. Nominate your favorite game and we'll give you our thanks and a cheese log! Well, one out of two ain't bad.]