*Okay, so I thought we had some confusion here on the release dates again, because my research was initially saying Defender was released into arcades in 1981. But it looks like it was playable in 1980 and demoed. So, I guess the book is saying the game was technically released in 1980 and then “widely” released in 1981. You know like when a movie’s release date is the year before it comes out in theaters because it technically debuted publicly at a film festival or something?
*Williams was a company that manufactured pinball machines. In 1973, they dipped their toe into the world of video games with a Pong clone called Paddle Ball. Then they kind of went quiet on the video game front until 1979, when they decided to create original games. The brief on Defender was a to create a game influenced by Space Invaders (1978) and Asteroids (1979) and what they did was . . . well, they really did something.
*Eugene Jarvis was tasked as the lead developer and given a tiny team, but almost total creative freedom. They came up with a couple of very early developments; one of the coolest things about Asteroids, they thought, was the wrap-around feature. A ship being able to fly off the screen was pretty cool. Likewise, they enjoyed the advancing enemy design of Space Invaders, but by 1980, that formula was pretty standard. We’ve already talked about Galaga and Centipede, both of which mimicked the top-down formatting of Space Invaders. For Defender, which didn’t yet have a name, the team decided the movement should be horizontal.
*Some of the other decisions they made, I’ll talk about when we get into the actual game play.
*Hmm, I wonder what the response to the game was at the time. I wonder if I can find any reviews. Oh, here’s one from Softline Magazine in 1983 . . .
*Defender “remains one of the hardest arcade games ever developed . . . attempts lasting less than ten seconds are not uncommon . . .”
*well that’s just f
*Fu . . . n isn’t that just going to be fun
*Okay, let’s jump to the gameplay. You are a ship and you can move left or right on a horizontally scrolling map, thus making this the first side-scrolling shooter.
*At the top of the screen is the most detailed mini-map we’ve yet encountered. I feel like Lunar Lander and Battlezone both had a mini-map, but this one shows the length of the map with enemies noted on the map and brackets that helpfully indicate what part of the map your screen is currently located on.
*Meanwhile, in come the alien ships. There are people on the surface of the planet below you and the alien landers are coming to abduct them. Your goal is to destroy those landers before they can abduct the people or, push comes to shove, to destroy them while they have the people, but before they get too high off the ground.
*Obviously, if the ship is too high off the ground, the abductee will plummet to their death below when the ship is destroyed.
*This is the reason the game is called Defender. Eugene Jarvis said he felt like the game needed a layer beyond just blowing up enemy ships. He wanted the player to feel like they weren’t just destroying things, but were also SAVING things. So, he came up with the idea of protecting people from abduction and chose the name Defender.
*Of course, if that was all you were doing, this wouldn’t still be considered one of the most difficult video games of all time, would it? You are also being attacked by a variety of ships that you have to dodge and also destroy. Some of them fire missiles that are seekers, meaning that they continue chasing you even if you blow up the ship that fired them. And they do chase you, meaning they will go up or down on the screen as you do and you have to shoot them as well.
*So, I’m just gonna say it. This game feels like kind of a jump into light speed. This is both the most complex and the most difficult game we’ve yet encountered by . . . quite a large margin in my opinion.
*There’s just always so much going on and no game has thrown this much input at you at one time. At any given moment, there might be two landers on your screen going for humans at the bottom, two enemy ships firing at you, three or four seeker missiles already inbound toward you and, oh, yeah, by the way, one screen over, landing ships are also abducting people there and there’s an enemy ship headed from that screen toward your screen.
*Have I mentioned the controls? There are SEVEN buttons that you control your ship with. And a joystick. You’ve got the joystick to control your ship’s direction, but there’s a button to push for thrust and also one to kick your ship into reverse. There are two buttons for firing your weapons, one for your laser and one for your smart bomb which will destroy everything on the screen with you. Those are very limited, however, so you want to save the smart bombs for truly desperate situations. Also, there’s a hyperspace button, seemingly inspired by Asteroids, that just blinks your ship to another random position on the map. Again, use only in the most desperate of situations because the darn thing might just blip you into an even worse situation.
*I mean, I’ll own up to it. I sucked at this game. And that “ten second” figure above is no lie. My first run was probably about five seconds.
*I should say that I was, once again, incredibly lucky to be able to play an original arcade cabinet of this game at the Max Retropub in Tulsa. I tried looking up some emulated versions online but they seem to mostly be of the Atari 2600 port of the game, not the original arcade.
*And, let me tell you, trying to play this game on a keyboard is ridiculous; you’ve got seven keys mapped to the buttons as well as directional keys. It’s insane. It makes an very hard game nearly impossible. Certainly impossible for me.
*So, I don’t even know entirely what makes up a level . . . is it once you clear the entire map? I don’t know because I never did it. I played for thirty minutes or so and while I did eventually start to have some fun as I got a little better and able to feel like I was actually taking out a few enemy ships and saving a human or two here or there, I was never really, you know, “in control.” I can’t even estimate how many times my ship was destroyed in that thirty minutes or so. More than thirty, you know.
*Look, I’m almost forty. Those reflexes are just not there anymore.
*Narrator: They were never there.
*If you mastered this game back in the day, respect. Because it is super hard.
*And, in the same way I respect From Software games, I respect Defender. Because I did not really have very much fun playing it and it would take a ridiculous amount of time for me to ever get “good” at it. But it’s a masterpiece, I think. It’s a genuine jump into hyperspace in terms of the kind of complexity these games are able to generate and throw at the player. It’s mechanically precise, very intense and, yeah, just . . . man, it’s a hell of a game forty years later. I’d love to see some serious gamers who are genuinely really good at modern games have a go at this one on an arcade cabinet. I think it would still be difficult for them. It holds up.
*So, is this the “best” game so far? I mean, it’s a serious contender. It’s not for me, but it’s pretty amazing and the fact that it just roundly kicked my butt over and over again on the very first level means I have to tip my hat.
*Judging it by the fun I had . . . it’s pretty near the bottom of the list. But judged objectively on its merits as a work of art . . . it’s right at the top.
*If you mastered Defender back in the day, talk about it. This is a game that deserves some love from someone who actually managed to play it properly and I can’t really give it that.
*Okay, so next time . . . wow, it’s a really interesting one and one that makes a lot of history. Join me next time as we get to the most story heavy game so far and log on to the Apple II (?!) to play Eamon.