1.1 Humans

Only one type of alien, called a Lander, can capture a human. It descends on its hapless victim from above, and drags it vertically upward into the air. A warning sound is relayed to the player when this happens. If the Lander makes it all the way to the top of the screen, the alien and human fuse together to form a new, dangerous alien called a Mutant. Mutants home in on the player at a constant speed, and also fires at them.

To prevent this happening, the player must shoot ascending Landers and catch the human themselves before returning them to the ground.

If all humans are killed, the entire planet explodes, leaving the player in empty space. This also has the unfortunate effect of turning every Lander into a Mutant, making the player's job very difficult.

1.2 Aliens

There are six types of aliens in total.

• Lander - The primary enemy on every level. Can fire projectiles at the player. Captures humans and can fuse with them to become Mutants. Landers teleport into the level in waves.
• Mutant - A mutated Lander. Homes in on the player at constant speed, firing projectiles.
• Baiter - A flat, iridescent spacecraft that teleports in if the player is taking too long to complete a level. Homes in on the player and attempts to match their speed, whilst firing accurate projectiles. A difficult opponent due to its unbeatable speed and tiny horizontal cross-section, which makes it very hard to shoot.
• Bomber - A box-shaped alien that lays stationary mines in the air.
• Pod - A starlike alien that bursts into a number of Swarmers when shot.
• Swarmer - A tiny teardrop-shaped alien that moves very quickly in an undulating fashion. Difficult to shoot.

Once all aliens (except Baiters) are destroyed, the player progresses to the next level.

1.3 Controls

Defender had a somewhat unusual control system. Instead of the standard 'Up, Down, Left, Right' system, it had a 'Reverse' button to toggle the player's horizontal direction, a Thrust button to move in that direction, and a joystick to move up or down. There was also a Fire button for shooting, and a Hyperdrive button which teleported the player to a random position in the level. The game also had a " Smart bomb" button which would only destroy all onscreen aliens. The player has only a small reserve of these bombs, so they need to be used sparingly.

2 Legacy

After the success of Defender, there was a successful sequel called Stargate made in 1982, of which 26,000 units were made. After Stargate came Strike Force in 1991. It was one of the first games on WMS's ( Bally and Williams Electronics merged in 1986 to form WMS Industries, but kept the Bally, Williams, and Midway labels) new T-Unit arcade hardware.

Defender is listed as one of the "Top 100 Videogames" of all time by the Killer List of Videogames (KLOV).

3 Ports

Defender has been ported to most video game consoles of the early 1980s.

Screenshot Defender on the Atari 2600	Screenshot Defender on the Atari 5200	Screenshot Defender on the ColecoVision
Atari 2600 Screenshot	Atari 5200 Screenshot	ColecoVision Screenshot

4 See also

• List of arcade games

5 External links

• The KLOV entry on Defender
• Defender - my homage to the greatest computer code in human history
• Category at ODP

Arcade games Scrolling shooters Atari 2600 games 1980 computer and video games

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