2nd Generation Game - The Atari 2600 - Space invaders

In February 1978 Toshihiro Nishikado finalized a primitive spaceship shoot'em up video game called Space invaders. It was first introduced to the Atari 2600 and following it's huge success, Taito a company that sold video game transformed this game into a coin operated arcade machine, that cause a huge shortage of Yen coins in Japan.. Space Invaders for the Atari 2600 was the first ever arcade to home game license, becoming a huge best seller, which included 112 games with multiple playing variables. Some of the variables included faster aliens, faster projectiles, zig-zag projectiles, invisible aliens, 2 player and many more. This was a key ingredient to it becoming a very famous game due to the fact that you got allot for the ratio you were paying for. 

The aim is to defeat waves of aliens with a laser cannon to earn as much points as possible without getting hit. The original design was based on soldiers trying to cross a line and you had to shoot them up before they do, but it was politically unwise to do so, encouraging shooting people, so it was revamped into an alien invasion. Later on Space invaders 2 was released which featured a competitive 2 player mode. Space invaders did not have a long story line or in depth lore, but focused more on the actual game-play that the user was looking for also which created the obsession of getting a higher score than before and also having rival competition. Following its simplistic design Nishikado managed to create a game worth buying.

Bibliography:

Wikipedia, (2015). Space Invaders. [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Invaders [Accessed 6 May 2015].

Space invaders wiki, (2015). Space Invaders (Atari 2600). [online] Available at: http://spaceinvaders.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Invaders_%28Atari_2600%29 [Accessed 6 May 2015].

Old-computers.com, (2015). OLD-COMPUTERS.COM : HISTORY / detailed info. [online] Available at: http://www.old-computers.com/history/detail.asp?n=1&t=4 [Accessed 6 May 2015].

Wikipedia, (2015). List of Space Invaders video games. [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Invaders_video_games [Accessed 6 May 2015].