Space Invaders - Arcade Video Game

Space Invaders is a game of arcade designed by Toshihiro Nishikado and released to the market in 1978. At first it was manufactured and sold by Taito Co. in Japan, later licensed for production and distribution in the United States by Midway Games, division of Bally Technologies. Space Invaders is one of the first shooting games. It is one of the most famous video games in history. Your objective is to eliminate waves of aliens with a laser cannon and get as many points as possible. For the game's design, Nishikado was inspired by Breakout, War of the Worlds, and Star Wars.

Although it is a simple game by current standards, it was one of the forerunners of modern video games and helped expand the industry of the sector, from a mere novelty to a global industry. It was successful and popular since its launch. As of 2007, Taito has earned US $500 million in profits.

The success of this video game is legendary, in Japan there was a great shortage of coins, since they were used in video game rooms. The government had to increase the number of coins to cope with the emergency.

History

Space Invaders was released in 1978 by Toshihiro Nishikado, a Japanese designer from the Taito Corporation. The success of the game was enormous and it became a commercial phenomenon: after a short time it was possible to buy all kinds of merchandising related to this creation, such as books, records or T-shirts.

Furthermore, the first clones did not take long to emerge. Because Space Invaders, although it seems impossible, was not subject to copyright, several video game producers cloned it by releasing games such as: Space Invaders Deluxe, Super Invaders or Fast Invaders.

The game also had countless adaptations over the years, such as: "Space Invaders '95: The Attack Of Lunar Loonies", or the most recent for Nintendo DS "Space Invaders Extreme", as well as various parodies such as Adventure Invaders, Alienated, Atari Invaders, Coke Invaders (Pepsi Wins!), Pepsi Invaders (Coke Wins!), Rainbow Invaders, Spice Invaders, and Moncloa Invaders, just to name a few.

The game

Space Invaders is a classic two-dimensional kill machine. The player controls a cannon that can be moved left or right and a fire button. You have to destroy the invading aliens (of which there are three types: squid, crab and octopus) that are approaching the earth more and more rapidly as the player destroys the enemies. This cycle can be repeated indefinitely. If the invaders reach the player controlled cannon, the game ends.

From time to time, a flying saucer appears randomly on the screen, moving randomly from right to left or left to right, and does not add a defined score, but rather extra points in random amounts. In addition, there are four ground protection shields (more similar to bunkers) that cover the player from the alien fire, but which are gradually destroyed by the shots of the invaders and the player's cannon.

The game is available for most desktop consoles. Since its success in arcade machines, it went to the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, in 1997 the Nintendo 64 version, Space Invaders 64, was released, which is a completely improved version, with a 3D graphics engine, more extensive and varied, since Here the player goes from planet to planet starting on Pluto and ending on Mercury. An energy bar is added that fills with the color of the destroyed alien. When it fills up, a missile fires to finish the enemies faster. At the end of the 10 levels, face a boss to go to the next planet. For PlayStation, the graphically improved version of Nintendo 64 is relaunched.

It is even available versions for phones with Java system.

Appearances

• In Mortal Kombat Trilogy, it appears as a hidden game thanks to the Kombat Kodes.
• In the Futurama animated series, in the Anthology of Interest II chapter, you can see a scene where the Space Invaders Martians are going down and Fry and his friends get on a ship to destroy them like in the game.
• In Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 it is possible to play Space Invaders.
• In the Fido Dido game for Sega Genesis, at level 3, when Fido Dido enters the ship, it is a parody of Space Invaders.
• At level 3 of Battletoads appear the alien ships of Space Invaders that take away energy from the player, who must destroy them with blows and recover their vitality.
• At OpenOffice.org with the calc program you can play a variant of Space Invaders with a secret code.
• In Wreck-It Ralph next to the Fix-It Felix Jr. machine are the Pac-Man machines on the right side and Space Invaders on the left side.
• In a Simpsons level: Bart has to use slingshots to destroy approaching alien ships, which go faster each time a group is annihilated.
• In the Pixels video, it first appears destroying New York cars.
• In 2008, the Italian clothing brand 55dsl released a t-shirt that commemorates 30 years of the game.
• German Electro Industrial group Eisenfunk recorded a tribute song to Space Invades called "Super Space Invaders".
• In Cáceres (Spain) there is a bridge over the Rivera del Marco, in Fuentefría, whose board consists of a mosaic that reproduces a game of Space Invaders.
• In the anime Lupine III an episode appears where Lupine tries to open a safe through a game of Space invaders in chapter 134 the box of the Martians.