Sega‘s Zaxxon is an early arcade shooter that broke the mould. It was first released in 1982.
Tag Archives: early
Galaga, Arcade
Namco‘s Galaga – the sequel to Galaxian – came out in 1981 and was an immediate hit with gamers.
Gone were the days of Space Invaders and rigid attack patterns – the baddies in Galaga danced around the screen; made circles, and flew around in distinct and fluid attack patterns. It was new and it was revolutionary!
Gorf, Arcade
Gorf is an early arcade shooter that feels like a poor relative to many of its peers of the time.
It borrows most of its features from other games (one wave is actually called “Galaxians” although I do believe that the developers properly licensed it from Namco) and doesn’t bring anything new to the table in terms of gameplay, but it did pioneer one thing. And that is: in the use of synthesised speech. Gorf was one of the earliest video games to use it (and although clear, it is quite robotic).
Centipede, Arcade
Designed by Ed Logg and Dona Bailey, Centipede is a superfast fixed-screen shoot ’em up from the arcades of 1981.
Moon Cresta, Arcade
Moon Cresta was released by Nichibutsu in 1980 and was extremely popular in arcades.
It is another colourful, fixed-screen shooter, this time with a scrolling starfield to give the impression of movement.
Battle Zone, Arcade
Atari‘s 1980 hit Battle Zone was one of the first ever video games to use 3D polygonal vector graphics to represent the playfield.
It’s a tank game, and you’re basically hunting down tanks, flying saucers, and other baddies. Shooting them before they can shoot you.
Phoenix, Arcade
Phoenix is another great vertical shoot ’em up from the golden age of video gaming. It was developed by Amstar Electronics of Arizona and manufactured by Centuri in 1980, and featured even more progressive gameplay than Space Invaders and Galaxian.
Galaxian, Arcade
Galaxian is an iconic video game from the golden age of gaming history.
In fact, Galaxian was Namco‘s response to Space Invaders. It came out in 1979 and enthralled gamers with its hypnotic but brutal gameplay. Which it still does, to this day.
Berzerk, Arcade
Released into arcades in 1980, Stern Electronics‘ Berzerk is a simple multi-directional shooter where the aim is to rack up as many points as possible by shooting robots in a maze.
Space Invaders, Arcade
Space Invaders, owned and manufactured by Taito, is the best-selling video game and highest-grossing entertainment product of all time.
The King of Grabs 