#6: Space Invaders (1978, Taito)

My day job when I'm not blogging about video games is at a multinational economic organization headquartered in Washington, DC. That means I have to take the DC subway to and from work. I'm very, very familiar with space invaders. Trust me.

Space Invaders was one of the first games released by Taito Corporation, the company we now know for a wide variety of classic shooters like the Darius series along with the Arkanoid and Cooking Mama games. It's inspired a variety of sequels and remakes, most recently the excellent Space Invaders: Infinity Gene for PlayStation Network, XBLA and IOS. It's representative of video games as a whole - pretty much everyone knows it and has played it regardless of if they do a lot of gaming or not.

What is there to add to this game, really? Perhaps even moreso than Pong, Space Invaders is the video game. Volumes have been wrote about it and what it did for gaming. We wouldn't have games as they are today without it. But chances are you know that. All I can do at this point is play it!