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oaktaro · 8 days ago

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People consider SPACE INVADERS a horror game!?

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Something that surprised me is how many people consider SPACE INVADERS a horror game. I’ve seen it sighted in books, horror wikis, and countdowns as an early horror game, so I looked into the game I barely knew. I remembered alien horror had been a thing for at least decades by this point, but then I found out it was originally planned to be called Space Monster, which is about as stereotypical as 20th century horror gets, and, wow, I never noticed its official cover monster or its revered horror soundtrack, so now I’m interested to dive into one of the most iconic horror games in world history!

Inspiration

This Tomohiro Nishikado was interested in working development with his engineering skills, which is why he quit his job at Takt, which had him feeling unfulfilled, and joined Taito Corporation in 1968, developing various arcade games from 1970’s Sky Fighter to ‘73’s Davis Cup and his favorite project, 1974’s Speed Race. The same year Ramtek released Clean Sweep, landing as the third best-selling arcade video game of the year behind Atari’s Gran Trak 10, which was a successful clone of 1969’s Speedway. Atari, of course, was founded and made a name for itself, cloning, well-received games, and just as Pong was a successful clone of Magnavox Table Tennis, Atari’s suspiciously similar game to Clean Sweep would dwarf the original’s notoriety, and Tomohiro would get deeply into it. Now in 1972, he dissected Pong’s hardware to clone it as Elepong for Taito, but this time he was reverse engineering the aspects of gameplay that made Breakout so satisfying to push the concept forward. His idea was a cover shooter!

Construction

While Breakout consisted of rectangles, Tomohiro was going for more detailed graphics, considering various things from tanks with rotating cannons to combat planes physically turning in the sky to be what the approaching waves would be, but the difficulty of implementing so much animation on such a mass scale proved a challenge. He then saw a magazine article about Star Wars and realized… Space! He thought of the martians in H.G. Wells 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, trying to stick to a theme of octopus-like aliens descending like spiders that don’t need to be animated as turning when changing direction. He also ran into the famous blessing in disguise, where the sheer amount of animating enemies on screen would slow the game down, but the player defeating more and more sped the game up, meaning the difficulty scaled with how well the player was doing, so he decided to leave it in, sometimes attributed as the first game with difficulty scaling, but I wouldn’t be too confident about that. A mirror would be used to reflect a CRT to achieve a crater-filled rock and stars behind the animating enemies, making the game’s setting. It’s sometimes thought to be inspired by the destroyed Earth that was bombarded by meteorites in the show Space Battleship Yamato. It used orange and green strips, overlaid on portions of the screen, to add further color, as it was not using a color CRT. The game’s soundtrack is revered for evoking tension and being one of the earliest known examples of dynamic music. Speeding up when less enemies are on screen is often compared to a heartbeat, much like the increasing speed in the Jaws movie soundtrack. Tomohiro said it took him about 9 or 10 months to make the game overall. He decided to name it Space Monster, but possibly due to already having a game called Space Monster, they told him they had to go with another name, so Space Invader was born (it was then asked to be pluralized to Space Invaders); though, Tomohiro suspects, the cover monster looking as it does could be a result of the artist being given the name Space Monster initially and not actually looking at the game itself. Philips would however release a Space Invaders clone called Space Monster for the Odyssey² about 2 years after Space Invaders launch in 1978. This makes me suspect that Space Monster did not release outside of Japan because I’d assume they’d have some sort of trademark for the name in the countries they release.

Reception

Tomohiro’s bosses reportedly feared Space Invaders reception due to a “game over,” possibly resulting in a shorter playtime compared to a timer-based approach, and yet it would become so popular that Space Invaders only arcades began opening as it became the arcade game industry’s all-time best selling and sighted as the start of the golden age of arcade video games. It popularized things like having a high-score list and that move away from time-based games in general. In the next 2 years, it would technically become the earliest known horror game to win a Game of the Year award (2 years because it released delayed from Japan to America, where it won the award). It’s home console version by Rick Maurer broke sales records with over 2 million cartridges sold in the first year after being licensed to Atari, quadrupling their console's sales, and it is the earliest known horror e-sport.

The 1980 Space Invaders National Championship

Video game competitions predate Pong, with the earliest known tournament being held by Rolling Stone magazine in October of 1972 for the grand prize of a year's subscription to the magazine. Throughout the ‘70s, they’d grow to nationwide tournaments like Sega’s 1974 national championship and Gremlin challenging anyone to try to beat their pro-players Lynn Reid and Sabrina Osment, who’d tour across the U.S. to accept games of Hustle for a hundred 1977 USD. (That ain’t $100 today.) Space Invaders was giant. It had strategy guides on sale, and it would have an appropriate-sized tournament to test its players’ mastery. The 1980 Space Invaders Championship to promote its console release would draw in over 10,000 players from across the country with prizes ranging from desktop computer to the grand prize of some sort of arcade machine. I’ve seen it sighted as an Asteroids cocktail table, but the victor would refer to it as a stand-up cabinet in an interview and would be offered jobs in games journalism following the victory.

It’s popularity made it a target of legal legislation.

Space Invaders’ popularity is quite something. Apart from the famous corporate gift given at a Coke event turning the monsters into the Pepsi letters, the monsters are often used as logos and even the symbol for video games as a whole! It’s soundtrack has been covered by many music groups, but like anything this popular, it was not without its detesters. United Kingdom politician, Baron Foulkes of Cumnock, moved to allow the restriction of the video game for it’s addictive properties through the Control of Space Invaders and Other Electronic Games bill. It would seem the medical condition referred to as “Space Invaders elbow” was not the only side effect of the game. Parents from U.S. to Japan had attempted to get legal legislation passed to restrict Space Invaders on the grounds that it’s addicting nature caused truancy, but their fate would be like The Lord Foulkes of Cumnock’s bill which which was defeated 114 votes to 94, which is way too close for my comfort.

Space Invaders Part II – 1979 Jul - Cabinet

Of course, with the game's popularity, even in the ‘70s, they’d think about annualizing games, and Tomohiro would get to work on the sequel for the following year’s release. Working with the same technology as the first, but now with a color monitor, Space Invaders Part II would add much vibrancy to the iconic monsters, though the U.S. release would stick to using color overlays instead. Set in a more fleshed-out surface base, you now have to worry about monsters splitting in 2, like worms, into what became known as Shape Shifters! The new blinking saucers would become iconic of this game, sometimes bringing reinforcements. To help you keep track of everything, your cover will now display the current wave number, and the game would incorporate cutscenes, expand on a glitch in the first game, causing a trail behind the enemy (now being incorporated as a bonus reward), and improve the bragging rights of high scores by allowing the player to enter their name. While dwarfed by coming out only a year after the original, which would continue to be a top-sensation for years, Space Invaders Part II would make the rounds, leaving a large impact itself, and while competition was quite convenient on cocktail tables that could flip the screen between each player, the same year, Midway would release competitive multiplayer tables, titled Space Invaders II as apposed to Part II, where a second player would be atop as the 2 compete from either side of the Monster Invasion.

5 years would pass…

Return of the Invaders - 1984 Sep 12 - Cabinet

The arcade golden age was over, Atari’s dominance was over, and Space Invaders got a third entry in the series. Return of the Invaders would be easily distinguishable from its predecessors at a glance, from its speed and monster flight patterns to its more detailed sprites. The player could now equip a variety of weapons to face new enemies, bosses, and mechanics like shifting cover. The dynamic soundtrack was back and crisper, though a single track has been criticized as the fatal flaw of this game since you hear it the most, with it sounding too whimsical as opposed to the looming dread of its predecessors’ original score. While making improvements and climbing charts, its fatal flaw seems to leave it not as fondly remembered as the fourth game.

The fourth console generation had people saying “Super” and Space Invaders was no exception.

Majestic Twelve: The Space Invaders Part IV - 1990 - Cabinet

Majestic Twelve: The Space Invaders Part IV, more commonly known as Super Space Invaders '91, would be released in arcades and, eventually, many home systems with the arcade version, understandably, not having the long cutscene telling the story of how, in the year 2061 A.D., a garbage dump in space was opened and a passing cruiser dislodged an original ‘70s Space Invaders cabinet that would float through space for years before being found by an advanced civilization that decides to recreate the game’s enemies in real life and use them to wipe out humanity across the galaxy! My favorite thing about this game is how it describes Nishikado’s original game caused people to steal money, skip work, and even ruin their marriages to play it. I suspect it did the same to this advanced civilization, causing them to seek revenge. The tone carries to the game. Probably most remembered about this game is the missions protecting cows from being abducted by saucers, but overall this game is a leap on all fronts with a variety of locations and adversity to overcome to a soundtrack that did not repeat the mistake of the third entry.

Space Invaders '90/ Space Invaders ‘91 – 1990 Sep 7 – Mega Drive

While Majestic Twelve: The Space Invaders Part IV would be ported to the Master System and even Game Gear, the Sega Megadrive game would drop the “Super” from its title and be a completely different game on its own with an upbeat soundtrack and generally faster pacing, though it still had some relaxing, slower-paced levels.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. This all sounds too scary… so lets take a breather for a second.

Space Invaders '95: The Attack of Lunar Loonies – 1995 Jun - Cabinet

Space Invaders '95: The Attack of Lunar Loonies lets you play as a toilet, dog in a trashcan, or other colorful characters as you fly through vibrant and visually captivating worlds. This might be my favorite Space Invaders game. It’s so fun and visually appealing!

Space Invaders X – 1999 Feb 17 – PS1, N64, Windows, GBC

I know a lot of people like this game. Space Invaders, released in 1999, presents the classic Space Invaders game-play, with powerful new weapons, through the lenses of an action hero wiping out the invaders in an art direction, abandoning them being giant organic monsters to instead all be ships. I assume this was to make them consist of flat shapes with little curves so that they could be done in polygons easier. Despite it’s contemporary soundtrack, the enemies only really goes for the original’s formation pattern, with bosses being the only real deviation from this. It’s the opposite of what I’d want in a sequel to Space Invaders, being to move the game-play forward. It feels like it reverted the improvements that the previous sequels made, though I guess this would be more akin to a reboot where you go back to basics. It just went a little too far back to basics for me, and its choice of going for ships instead of organic monsters is just far less interesting from a setting perspective for me. I don’t think this is a bad game, especially as I got further into it; spoilers on that, but I did appreciate the humerus battles with the cutouts of the original cover monster and a classic sprite, including a recreation of the original game’s setting, referred to as the alien’s home world. It’s a little goofy like Attack of the Luna Loonies, and I probably would have liked it more if the whole game was like this. The Game Boy Color version would be barely recognizable as the same game but not do anything to stand out on its own against any other Space Invaders either. These are games that gave me a bad first impression, but I can see myself getting more and more into them as I play them more and more. They definitely haven’t taken me away. They just didn’t impress me as much as the other sequels.

Space Invaders: Invasion Day – 2002 – PS2, GameCube

In terms of “actually” making a sequel, they would return to a different perspective. In 1995, Taito licensed to an Ultraman game that played like a behind-the-back version of Space Invaders. In 2002, Space Invaders: Invasion Day would do the same, contextualizing the game-play as a lone survivor on Earth, trying to survive the invasion, featuring new and classic monsters, including the original cover monster! The iconic crab, the face of Space Invaders, and sometimes videogames as a whole gets such a glow-up in this game, and I love seeing the scale of it to a normal person because you’re normally in a big machine. I never really thought about the scale of these giant monsters before now. Invasion Day may answer every gripe I had with the 1999 "remake,” but it introduced new ones. Only afterward, I found out, there’s unlimited continues where you resurrect where you were slain, meaning there is no “game over” state, and what I did notice right away is that so many grunt enemies take multiple hits regardless of the character you play. This removes the impact of a shooter for me. It’s something I don’t mind being reserved for bosses, but a lot of the impact of what made the original Space Invaders work for me is you’re both out in one hit. This is removed by giving either of us health bars! I would call this my fatal flaw that sours my taste much like that song does for so many in the third game. This game’s music is also not the dynamic slow dread revered about the series but matches what the game is going for in telling a dire story about being overwhelmed by the sheer scale of adversity that at times seems hopeless. It never felt impactful though, which could have been greatly aided by a more restrained, dynamic score like its predecessors. The overall sound design truly lacked impact for a variety of reasons, but, other than that, I found a lot of things I liked about this game. It’s a very specific vibe of game that I can only describe as Michigan: Report from Hell. Don’t expect anything too crazy! It’s a 12+ game, but I don’t know how to describe it other than that. I’ve come to appreciate this very specific vibe. It clears the admittedly low bar of being the most interesting visuals and story direction I’ve seen in Space Invaders, ignoring the apples to oranges of comparing it to Space Invaders ‘95. I honestly found its 3 characters interesting, with 2 looking to avenge their fallen loved ones and the third seemingly going mad in desperation from the fact that she never found her significant other in the chaos of the invasion. Whenever the game’s tone took breaks from the actiony or tongue-in-cheek, it would always return to the direness of the situation, which it did a good job of conveying through game play… but that decision to have health bars ruined that game-play for me. Its story is also a single event in an ongoing invasion which never got a sequel, likely to this one’s negative reception. This is the last time they would ever try to make a big sequel to Space Invaders, but far from the last time they’d use the IP for games!

Space Invaders: Evolution – 2005 Sep 22 - PSP

After a few years, Space Invaders Evolution would have a quite unambitious by comparison rhythm game that I might call even simpler than the original with one row of enemies that don’t change speed and are simply fodder to build yourself up to enjoy beating the background saucer. This was packed as an extra new Space Invaders in the Space Invaders Evolution UMD, which was a collection also featuring a…very visually incomplete original and an old-school versus that treats your PSP like a cocktail table, and there was also wireless play. Having less ambitious new games in a collection like this is probably what I would have wanted Space Invaders X to be if it wasn’t made into a more ambitious sequel than it was.

Celebrating the retro of 70’s Space Invader is what the series would be from now on.

Space Invaders Revolution – 2005 Mar 24 - DS

Evolution was in line with Revolution that same year, having you globetrot to play 70’s style Space Invaders with modern sound design.

“Those are the Space Invaders. I thought we killed them all 30 years ago.” – Space Invaders: Get Even

Space Invaders 30th Anniversary Celebration (crazy to think this celebration is now retro itself)

When the 30th anniversary arrived, they’d release a plethora of games to celebrate! Space Invaders: Extreme added many visual effects and challenges to the 70’s era Space Invaders game-play, even receiving a sequel the following year. Space Invaders: Beat Attack would have you play 70’s style Space Invaders with your feet! Space Invaders: Get Even would have you play as the invaders, returning after being defeated in the original game. You pilot the saucer, trying to destroy the Earth by dropping sprites of the monsters. It's my favorite of the 30th anniversary games, but most surprising to me is Space Invaders: World War, which is an MMO-light Space Invaders where you fire at random sprites approaching for points that go to your country in a global competition. Both you and the sprites seem to have no movement restrictions from the footage I’ve found, but it was shut down a little over a year after launch. I was expecting it to look like the 40th anniversary game, Space Invaders Gigamax, where you simply have multiple players on screen, but as it is, it does seem VR port-friendly, like a shooter version of Beat Saber… Is that just Rez?

Reflecting on Space Invaders

Like Space Invaders 4 stated, as time moved on, people found new forms of entertainment, and while Taito couldn’t keep Space Invaders up with the Joneses, going this direction of only celebrating retro nostalgia for the first, is a reminder of just how impactful it was. In the 21st century, Tomohiro Nishikado was asked what he thought of Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell saying he didn’t like modern video games. Nishikado answered that Triple-A games usually being created by such large teams can make the creators of their era feel disconnected, and Triple-A games of the 21st century often put more concentration on the graphics than the depth of the game’s mechanics, which makes him sad too. He stated that Galaxian is more what he was trying to make with the original Space Invaders, but falling short of that is the reason it succeeded, so he wouldn’t have any desire to go back and change how his game came out.

#space invaders #retro games #horror games #horror #Youtube

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