Play Alien Invaders Online

Alien Invaders came out in the arcades in 1980 from Taito. It was one of those games you'd see in every pizza parlor and bowling alley, a simple black and white screen that somehow always had a line of quarters on the cabinet. It didn't have the fancy colors or deep stories of later games; it was just you, a laser base, and a grid of enemies that felt like a math problem coming to life.

You control a small laser cannon that can only move left and right along the bottom of the screen. Your goal is to destroy every one of the descending alien formations before they land or overwhelm you. The aliens march side to side, dropping lower with each pass, and they also gradually increase their speed the fewer of them remain. One of the aliens, often called the mystery ship, will occasionally fly across the top of the screen for bonus points if you can hit it. The game has no levels or endings; it just gets relentlessly faster and more difficult until you make a mistake. It feels like a tense, escalating battle against an inevitable tide.