The original slide-and-shoot game.
Space Invaders was the first videogame that became wide spread in the United States, and the first to really exploit the medium, rather than falling back on the older games like Ping Pong, pinball, or hockey.
The science-fiction like aliens of Space Invaders were the first animated characters in an arcade game. Forty-eight of them, arrayed in six horizontal rows, marched across and down while firing laser bullets. The more that were hit, the faster they would advance. When all aliens were hit, a new squadron would appear, starting one row lower, ad infinitum. The game had no fixed ending, just an escalating degree of difficulty.
It was also the first game with a continuous highscore display. In Japan, Space Invaders was responsible for the uprise of arcade games. Also in the United States, it was the start of videomania, spurring sales of a new electronic television toy, the Atari 2600.
fig. 1. Space Invaders
fig. 2. Intruders
fig. 3. Here they come
