Defender

Defender is an arcade video game developed released by Williams Electronics in 1980. A shooting game featuring two-dimensional (2D) graphics, the game is set on a fictional planet where the player must defeat waves of invading aliens while protecting astronauts. Development was led by Eugene Jarvis, a pinball programmer at Williams; Defender was Jarvis's first video game project, and drew inspiration from Space Invaders and Asteroids. Williams planned to display the game at the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) trade show, though development delays resulted in the team working on the game up until the show started. Defender was commercially successful, selling over 55,000 units to become the company's best selling arcade game. Praise among critics focused on the game's audio-visuals and gameplay. It is frequently listed as one of Jarvis's best contributions to the video game industry, as well as one of the most difficult video games. Defender was ported to numerous platforms, inspired the development of other games, and was followed by sequels and many imitations.

Defender put players in charge of a ship sent to protect mankind from wave after wave of attacking alien forces. Armed with smart bombs and the ability to use hyperspace to move quickly around the planet, the player ship must fight against Bombers, Pods, Swarmers, Baiters, and Landers - that can capture the humanoids and transform them into deadly and relentless Mutants. Fail to save the humanoids from freefall or Mutant transformation, and the planet is destroyed. Defender is a port with modern enhancements of the original 1981 arcade title released on Xbox Live Arcade on November 15th, 2006. On February 17th, 2010 Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb announced on Twitter that nine Midway Games had been removed from Xbox Live “due to publisher evolving rights and permissions”.

Released in conjunction with a 3D update of the classic arcade game on consoles, the Game Boy Advance version is also an update of the original, but retains its side-scrolling gameplay. The cartridge includes several variants of the game. The main mode is called "XGP". Its basics are the same as in the original: The player's spaceship flies left or right over a scrolling landscape that wraps around after a few screens. The goal is to destroy all invading aliens before they can capture the humans sitting on the ground. Besides updated graphics with various backgrounds and sprites for the enemies and humans, there are other differences as well: players can select from different ships, all with slightly different weapons and ratings for shields and speed. The XGP mode offers six different levels to complete. It can also be played by two players over the System Link. The cartridge also includes "Classic" mode, which is a port of the original arcade game. Finally, "XG" mode is the same gameplay-wise as Classic, but has been updated with graphics similar to the XGP mode.