Defender
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The JC gets all figurative
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Defender is the greatest arcade console game ever made — definitely FAR better than Qix, superior in key respects than space invaders itself, and even though it didn’t offer a challenging stage, more rewarding than Galaga. Also a useful supply of life metaphors, though not quite so good as cricket. It has its own Defenderpedia.
Defender was an early arcade video game, of the generation after the original space invaders, which involved being a pilot in a small star fighter flying over a planet trying to rescue little sticky things and avoiding a host of more or less aggressive beasty things which are trying to kill you. One has a number of tools at one’s disposal, including a laser cannon that makes an impressive sound and fires a stream of annihilation (far more satisfying than the little pellets emitted in space invaders), a limited supply of smart bombs which blow up all bad guys on the screen but don’t harm the good guys, and the ability to randomly jump into hyperspace if things were getting really tricky (a move of last resort, as you have no idea how sticky the place would be where you wound up)
As such Defender was, and remains, one of the best sources of neat metaphors for the vicissitudes of life (but is still not as good on that score as cricket).
Glossary
- Smart bomb: a dangerous weapon that will kill all hostile craft within a 200m radius, whilst protecting your own little dudes. Only to be used when you’re really up against it.
- Hyperspace: sometimes, your only option, however fraught it may be (another way of saying Brexit means Brexit).
See also
- Space invaders: The black-and-white daddy of all arcade videogames, which effortlessly articulated the frustration and powerlessness of working in a modern corporate organisation;
- Galaga: a second generation version of space invaders, with a challenging stage and amusing music;
- Defender: A spin on the usual alien invasion motif, where you invade them, trying to rescue little sticky things, and the aliens fight back, and all you have is a thrillingly devastating laser cannon, a small supply of smart bombs and the ability jump randomly into hyperspace
- Space invaders calculator: I know it sounds insane, but you could have hours of cosmic fun with an ordinary digital calculator.
- Qix: which was really just a bit stupid, but through a design flaw in the game’s basic concept you could play for hours on end if you really wanted to.
All, in any case, useful metaphors for life in a modern multinational investment bank.