Defender (Arcade)

My love of space shooters is well documented since my time on the the internet as a writer. It's not difficult for me to gloss the greats like Gradius, the Darius series, and R-TYPE, they are still games with entries that I play to this day. The genesis begins with the arcade coin-op classics. And Defender was one I put a ton of tokens into whenever I had a chance.

Developed in 1981 by Williams Electronics and designed by Smash TV co-creator Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMarr (often referred to as the godfather of coding and was a legendary pinball table creator), Defender is a side-scrolling shooter where you play as a pilot on an unnamed planet. The objective, very straightforward and satisfying; destroy the alien assailants and rescue astronauts who are regularly under siege from kidnapping. If the Landers grab an astronaut, they transform them into fast monsters that can clutter the screen. Failure to save the civilians results in the planet being overrun with aliens, and it becomes a giant wave you have to survive.

Like Yar's Revenge, this is quite a progressive concept for a game with a streamlined concept, and it can get pretty difficult fast. With a combination of quick moving aliens and your ship's physics, Defender has a savvy mix of aggressive offense and some slick evasion, so as a kid, I gave this more love than Galaga, Galaxian, and even Space Invaders. It's the first space shooter I remember playing that had a scrolling wraparound screen, a revolutionary concept my young brain was witnessing.

Sure, the same thing was present in Pac-Man, but capturing the speed of galactic dogfights made for a hell of an experience. Correct me in the comments, if you will, this might've been the first shooter that utilized a screen clearing smart bomb, of which you get three.

The sound design is well done; the laser blasts and the humming of the ship, I find it incredibly immersive, hearkening back to a time where few other noises can be heard in the house beyond the bleeps, crashes, and screeches emitting form the TV. The controls are tight, and the challenge is more than stimulating, even the Atari 2600 port, which I grew up playing, handles really well. A staple of arcade gaming, Defender remains an important piece of software to me.