Blasting Aliens and Eardrums Since 1978
Yes we’re doing this…
The early days of the arcade industry were like a toddler stumbling around in a dirty diaper, puking out ideas, and hoping something didn’t suck. It’s 1978, and in comes Space Invaders, a majestic alien force from the future, and slapped the entire world across the face like, “Wake up you fucking nerds!” Suddenly, we weren’t just tapping a ball back and forth- we were blowing up aliens, defending Earth, and feeling our testosterone levels rise with each laser blast. This wasn’t a game; this was a cultural shift, a turning point, a goddamn revelation!
I speak as though I was alive for it, I wasn’t, but I can use my imagination to pretend that I was. For all I know the PlayRatedGames small audience we have may be younger than us; which might have you thinking right now, “What the hell is this dinosaur nonsense?” And honestly, it’s probably hard to picture a time when playing Space Invaders was the pinnacle of cool. But imagine, if you will, a world where the best thing you could do with a machine was whack a ball back and forth like you were in some weird ping-pong limbo. Then, Space Invaders comes crashing to Earth, and suddenly, you’re not just playing a game, you’re living the dream! If you weren’t there, consider yourself lucky, because you missed out on what was probably the closest thing to digital crack in the late ’70s.
For all of you freaks that haven’t been living on planet Earth in the last 50 years; the gameplay of Space Invaders is like this: you’re stuck in a crappy little spaceship at the bottom of the screen, firing measly little bullets at waves of alien scum that are slowly creeping down toward you, all while you try to avoid getting hit by their slow-moving shitstorms of death. The aliens are dumber than a bag of moon rocks but somehow keep inching closer, and you’re frantically blasting away like you’re trying to swat a fly in a room full of wasps, praying that one of your pathetic little shots actually hits something before they get too close and end your miserable existence. Your ship moves left and right, going pew-pew as you desperately try to dodge the slowest-moving alien death beams in history.. It’s pure, frantic arcade chaos – one wrong move, and boom, your game’s over, and you get to start all over again like the hopeless loser you are. The ear-shattering sound effects are iconic, but still feel like a sonic assault on your eardrums to this very day. I suppose they’d blend right in with the drunken chaos at some barcade, where the only thing louder than the game is the guy next to you hitting on waitresses half his age, stumbling around like he’s about to puke in the coin slot.
Space Invaders wasn’t just a game; it was a revolution in a cartridge. Released for the Atari 2600 home console, it brought the arcade experience into your living room, meaning you could now scream at a pixelated alien in the comfort of your own home without having to put pants on. This game was groundbreaking for introducing the concept of a high score, making players not just compete against the game, but against each other in a digital dick-measuring contest. It wasn’t just mindless shooting; it had strategy, tension, and the added stress of being chased by slow-moving aliens while you desperately tried to protect Earth with a dinky little spaceship. It was a game that made you think, “Why the hell is this so addictive?” and, “Why am I wasting my life away on this?” It laid the foundation for every game that followed, teaching us that video games could be more than just mind-numbing distractions – they could be world-altering, wallet-draining, hair-pulling addictions. Space Invaders turned gaming into an actual industry, proving that something as simple as blasting alien ships could hold more power than an entire generation’s attention span.
If it weren’t for Space Invaders, the gaming industry today would probably be a sad, empty mess, like an arcade where all the machines are out of order and crawling with cobwebs. Space Invaders didn’t just introduce aliens; it injected the entire gaming world with a shot of adrenaline, proving that people would actually spend money to get their asses kicked by pixelated invaders. Hell, we might not even be gaming at all! We might’ve still been stuck playing Pong trying to make the ball bounce in a straight line… Space Invaders was the spark that ignited the whole damn industry. Without it, we’d probably still be sitting around playing card games and pretending Monopoly is actually fun. Gaming might’ve never become what it is today, and instead, we’d all be crammed in basements playing ‘Sorry’, yelling at each other over who’s cheating, and then stabbing each other with the little plastic pieces. Forget consoles, forget PCs – without Space Invaders, we might still be stuck with mindless, joyless pastimes drawing dicks with a fucking Etch-a-Sketch. Gaming might’ve just become one of those things people look back on in nostalgia, like Tamagotchis, instead of the multi-billion-dollar monster it is today.
Catch you later, space cowboy,
Mikhail
Verdict: 10/10
https://classics.fandom.com/wiki/Space_Invaders