Epic Win: Space Invaders
From Wikipedia:
Space Invaders (スペースインベーダー, Supēsu Inbēdā?) is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and features two-dimensional graphics. The aim is to defeat waves of aliens with a laser cannon and earn as many points as possible. In designing the game, Nishikado drew inspiration from popular media: Breakout, The War of the Worlds, and Star Wars. To complete it, he had to design custom hardware and development tools.
Though simplistic by today’s standards, it was one of the forerunners of modern video gaming and helped expand the video game industry from a novelty to a global industry. When first released, Space Invaders was very successful and popular. Following its release, the game caused a temporary shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan, and by 2007 had earned Taito US$500 million in revenue. Guinness World Records ranks it the top arcade game.
First^^
Hehe had it on my old Nokia
I iz in ur game………
Invading ur space
Fail Invaders
Taik uz to ur leaderz win
I wuz better at TailGunner
look at de bigger pix: no ATARI, no invaderz.
This should be an ad for WoW
Its just that adictive
It was really simple. It just went on and on forever, with the aliens just getting faster and faster… It had such a fatalistic feel, like you couldn’t beat it but you were the only thing standing between the people of Earth and total splat. How many levels did it go, anyway? Well, without games like this there would be nothing, so hats off to them.
About four as far as I’m concerned!
I love that he gets to 50 and hasn’t discovered anything more advanced
Ahhah, but I guess it’s good that he’s easily entertained
For 40 years.
How much poop is on that sofa o _o
Man, this whole site is lame. I mean sure there are many lame sites, and the internet has a place for lameness, but need they be listed on the icanhascheeseburger bar?
So the games ranged from £14.95 – £29.95 – and I’m sure Space Invaders was at the high end. In 1980, when the game was released, the exchange rate ranged from $2.20 to $2.40 to the pound – making the game cost $65-75 in 1980 dollars (which is probably around $150 today). Yeesh.
Man, there were like rip-offs to Space Invaders as well.
Space Armada on the Intellivision, for example.
If you want to bring up things that were epic win, you should bring up all the old game systems. Intellivison, Commodore 64, Jaguar, etc.
Jaguar was definitely not win.
You forgot about the Nintendo 64. EPIC WIN. And before people start saying its not nostalgic, it says that anything pre-200 can be counted as nostalgic.
Last i checked, Pac-man for Atari FAILED miserably
I love Space Invaders! Indeed, I loved my Atari!! NO ONE could beat me at Missile Command, which was my favorite! Lots of fun games they had, all bringing innocent merriment! A lot healthier for everyone than today’s games that allow young people to carelessly slaughter everyone in sight without a care in the world!
Anybody notice that the picture is Breakout, not Space Invaders?
the ad is for Atari, not space invaders itself, Ataris (if that’s the proper plural form) were much more epic win than space invaders itself was.
lol how are those games educational? well im only youn so i never experienced those games.
I used to love the fact my local pub (Bar for Americans
) – the Cadbury House in Bristol – used to have a Space Invaders machine, as well as a couple of pinball machines, great days…
I’m glad you saw fit to mention that a pub is a bar because Americans are so stupid we DON’T KNOW WHAT A PUB IS.
I love the Brits as much as the next person but you’re a fucking elitist bitch.
overreaction?
I love Atari’s slogan “No one can beat us at our own game.” XD Look at em now!
Nostalgia win, commercial FAIL
Loved those old games! Keystone Capers, Missle Command, Defender, Armor Ambush…I could go on, and on.
Better commercials out there from the Atari era. There’s even one with the late, great Phil Hartman pimping Activision Ice Hockey.
On our old Atari – if you flipped it on and hit reset at the same time, you could fire two lasers at once. If I did that each time (yeah, it was sort of ‘cheating’, but they built that device in so why not use it?) I could flip the game each time I played. Of course, you only needed 10,000 points, I think… Good times and lots of sore thumbs.
I miss my Atari! My sister is getting me something from Ebay that is “a really cool present. Something you used to have when you were a kid.” In my heart and hopes, I’m wishing for an Atari. I LOVED Space Invaders, ET, that tank game, and ~gah~ there was another one, but I can’t remember the name.
Tank game!!!
Ah, I remember my eyeballs feeling like boiled onions… I figured out that there was an immune spot on the atari… I could plonk myself there, and although i wouldn’t hit anything, I wouldn’t be hit. So I could go to the immunity spot when I needed a good blink.
Kept on working on it until the day I hit a million points, then retired
I borked my Atari’s controllers playing this, then I got the MS-DOS version “Space Commanders,” which I played in between rounds of “Obliterator” and “Street Fighting Man”
great game, made me think for sure of alien invasions to earth.