Demon Attack

Released 1982
Atari 2600

Demon Attack is another take on the classic Space Invaders formula. You control a little ship/guy/cannon/pyramid/fluffy-kitten thing on the bottom of the screen. Enemies fly around at the top, and you try to shoot them. It's a framework for arcade games that worked for years. Galaga, in my opinion, perfected it. But games like Demon Attack or Gorf were a nice stopgap between Space Invaders and Galaga.

The twist to Demon Attack that makes it stand out is that the enemies continue to respawn several times in each wave. At any time, there can be up to 3 main enemies on screen. They've got random flight paths, and never approach the bottom of the screen. The lowest enemy can fire back at you, and in the later levels, enemies that are shot split into 2 suicidal demons. As you clear each wave, the lowest enemy fires progressively faster, making it very difficult to eliminate.

It's a simplistic game of course, but it had some decent animation and sound effects for it's time. I enjoyed it as a kid, and it still had it's charms today. But I'd still rather be playing Galaga.
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