That's cool. My favorite game of all time...
And the most
ICONIC video game ever made.
http://brentradio.com/SpaceInvaders.htm
Discuss amongst yourselves...
I love a lot of other classics too, but for me, it absolutely started with the original SI (I was seven and it was 1978), at a restaurant called County Line Inn, in Montgomery, NJ (that SI was a nice one...had a transitional multicolor overlay, wasn't just the standard reddish-orange on top and the green on bottom). Then an ice cream/burger joint about a mile from my house got one right around the same time, so I got to play a lot of SI as a child. Took me a long time to finally clear a board, but I was thrilled when I finally managed it. Then about a year later, at a diner in Lawrenceville NJ, I played SI Deluxe for the first time. Blew my 9-year-old mind. Also made my father furious when I inhaled my fried chicken dinner (barely chewing) so I could go play more SI Deluxe ASAP. Pretty much cemented my father's hate for video games. He also created a new rule: one dollar each for me and my bro, as far as arcade games went in restaurants. Once we spent it all...that was it. GAME OVER, quite literally. I remember thinking after playing a couple of games of SI Deluxe, "Man, I want one of those someday!" Never thought it would actually happen, roughly 35 years after those first plays.
Speaking of SI Deluxe, how do you feel about that one?
To me, it was a perfect early example of what a sequel should be...similar gameplay, but with all of the right tweaks and improvements to make things just a bit different, and more importantly, more challenging. The Mystery and Flashing ship dropping reinforcements; the splitter invaders; the invader formations that changed as you cleared screens; the 500/800/1000 bonuses awarded for making a 10-point invader in the lower two rows the last kill of a given screen (great risk/reward addition)...it's these changes that made me opt to buy a SI Deluxe machine over a SI. Also loved the moonbase and supernova background.
That being said, SI Deluxe can definitely have more of a grinding feel to it...the formations from Level 2 on in Deluxe (Level 4 on in SI Part II) have a lot of 30-point invaders (and splitter "offspring" invaders), which leads to a lot of blocked shots...sometimes 3 or 4 in a row. It can get a little irritating. That's why I'm glad I have fine versions of the original SI on my Arcade SD and Xbox (Taito Legends). Sometimes I want a "simpler" game of SI, where I'm just trying to clear boards without the extra fluff you get in SI Deluxe.
But nothing can beat that bassy four-note thump that you can only get with a proper SI, SI Part II, or SI Deluxe cabinet. Even in 2017, it still rocks.