Defender | 1981 | Arcade | Gameplay | HD 720p 60FPS

Defender is an arcade video game developed and released by Williams Electronics in February 1981. A horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up, 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' first video game project and drew inspiration from Space Invaders and Asteroids.

Defender was one of the most important titles of the Golden Age of Video Arcade Games, selling over 55,000 units to become the company's best selling game and one of the highest-grossing arcade games ever. Praise among critics focused on the game's audio-visuals and gameplay. It is frequently listed as one of Jarvis' best contributions to the video game industry, as well as one of the most difficult video games. Though not the first game to scroll horizontally, it created the genre of purely horizontal scrolling shooters. It inspired the development of other games and was followed by sequels and many imitations.

There were many ports to contemporary systems, most of them by either Atari, Inc. or its software label for non-Atari platforms, Atarisoft.

This is an emulated arcade version using M.A.M.E.
Captured and played at 60fps.
Played at default arcade difficulty!

Used in this gameplay video:

PC hardware - AMD gpu
Emulator - Mame
Controller - 10 button custom made arcade joystick
Joystick: Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT
Buttons: OBSF-30 with 2 microswitches

Keep it real, keep it retro!!!!

[noisepuppet]

The graphics and sound design are just cool as hell. And on such limited computing resources. The game is immersive and convincing without ever coming close to photorealism. Williams had brilliant game design.

[wiljohn]

I remember this game in my early high school days. I use turn the score over back to 0. This game changed my life. I never went to class. This game was my drug.

[TheRetroShed]

Undoubtedly one on the masterpices of 80's arcade gaming. Tough game and I was useless at it because it had too many buttons - but those visuals and noises take me right back.

[howiesworld]

My Dad has a stand - up arcade set of this he got as a wedding present almost 30 years ago. This digs into levels of nostalgia I cannot properly describe

[phnigra]

🔥DEFENDER🔥
This game holds a special place in my heart.. I played a few of the other arcade games at the time but this was the one that stood out.
Watching it now on YouTube and it still holds up all these years later 💪🏼

[billyclub]

Growing up in London, I used to play this game pretty much as soon as it was released (maybe 3-6 months after). Not that it is any great achievement, but I got good at it. I used to travel around London with a few friends looking for arcades that had a Williams Defender. My favourite was on The Strand, close to Charing X station. We would have got the train from Woolwich Arsenal. The objective was to leave 999, 975 on the Hall of Fame. One more kill and you clocked the machine and had to start again. This was a killer as it would take ages to get it back up to the maximum score (I usually gave up and let others play with my 'lives'), and then suicide your spare lives without scoring any points. It was tough. I loved leaving my tag 'WIZ' on the Hall of Fame. The sound and visuals were in my opinion, fantastic. Miss those days and the people I spent my time with. Thanks for the share.

[spasticjackson]

I remember the loud pulsing sound of Defender just drowning out everyother sound in the arcade. Good stuff.

[danielmandujano]

Back in the ’80 we played complete afternoons with my brother.
We mastered the game to the point of clocking the score back to 0.
The Indian Store owner of Arcade Game, was furious with us. Just with only 25 Cents, we used to play hours leaving the game packed with too many ships to be used as we handed the game to some neighbors in Cape Town, South Africa.
Sweet memories and nostalgia of my childhood.

[geoffkennedy]

The sound effects take me back to the eighties when I was a kid.

[smeatrn]

Just bought one of these cocktail machines, took 3 days of troubleshooting to get it working again. Now it's working as good as new and once I get the cabinet looking as good as it deserves, it's going to be my permanent coffee table. Having high scores that save to battery backup was a great feature at the time and really makes it a great machine to own at home.

How good is Defender???? Well I'm watching Defender videos on YouTube while I'm at work just counting down the hours until I can play again. Damn what a game.

[aien]

Wow those sound effects take me back. I was a complete arcade games addict in the 80’s and this was one of my favourites. It cost 10p a throw and when I mastered it, I could take the score round the clock, then sell it on to one of the watching crowd for 10p to continue the game. Those were the days :-)

[diegocrusius]

theres magic behind the screen... I love these old games because they dont need sountracks. They create their identity on sound effects only. I can only imagine how awesome must have been to play it on arcade early on its release

[dazzassti]

No idea how I ended up here, but just sat watching War Games for a bit of nostalgia, then thinking what I was doing back then… oh yeah, clocking Defender 6 times 😁😁😁😁 just the sounds trigger some ace memories

[briancromack]

One of the finest videogames ever made. I've been playing this in the arcade, various 8 & 16-bit conversions, MAME on PC, and on my MAME cabinet and I'm still terrible at it!

[MamaAki]

A classic that still can be enjoyed, even today.

[Ed_Stuckey]

1:15 _That sound_
My blood pressure and heart rate went up immediately when the play actually started.
Even though I was 38 when this game came out, I was immediately hooked. So many hours standing in front of this machine. *sigh*

[SharkDude]

One of the best games ever! Loved Defender!

[threecreationleather]

I was 13 when this came out - we loved this game.

[leeelliott]

Wow I remember this game from when I was younger, such a memorable sound

[andrewjones]

OMG! Has it really been 40+ years?!? I remember binge playing this game on the Ocean City, New Jersey boardwalk during summer break from college! The sound effects are fantastic! They sound really good in this video on high-def headphones! 👍👾