Space Invaders

I happened to see that this month marks the 30th anniversary of the venerable “Invader Game,” what Space Invaders is called in Japan. This was one of the most influential video games ever released, with many innovative features for its era, including being the first game to introduce the element of competition by recording the day’s high scores. For me personally, Space Invaders represents no less than the point in history when just about everything cool started to come from Japan. While the Golden Age of coin-operated video games would still see plenty of innovative releases from American companies over the next few years, it wouldn’t take long for icons like Mario, Link and friends to win the hearts of gamers everywhere, for the first time creating a generation that looked to Japan as a major source of its popular culture of choice. Japanese influence would continue to be felt everywhere, starting with the tired lineup of after-school cartoons which were really ready for a smack-down, through the world of American comic books, and all the way to Hollywood. Now, it’s almost impossible to separate the ways in which Japan has influenced the world we live in, and to me, it all started with that simple, fun Invader Game.