Phoenix

Launched in 1980 and one of the first arcade games to feature distinct levels of play, Phoenix took a few basics from Space Invaders and Galaxian, and added a style all its own with its bright pastel graphics and multi-stage challenges.

The early stages of Phoenix played much like Galaxian but with one major change. Menacing aliens still attacked your spaceship, but this time, you had a defence. In addition to the standard blaster, Phoenix gave its players a temporary shield, which would protect your ship from enemy shots and fry anything that flew into it.

The shield would drop without warning, though, and it took a full seven seconds to recharge.

Later stages brought bigger birds – big enough to take more than one shot. A direct centre hit would still drop the enemies with a single blast, but anything less would only take off a wing, and – true to the game’s title – the birds could regenerate themselves.

The final stage of Phoenix put your small ship up against the alien mothership itself.

The saucer-like craft had a thick underbelly, which had to be knocked out a piece at a time, cutting a big enough hole to get a clean shot at the purple-headed alien in the cockpit.

Making this even tougher, a swarm of small birds flanked the mothership, swooping down to drive you off. Once you blasted the big baddie to smithereens, the game would start over at a higher skill level.

Phoenix was very popular in its heyday, but an explosion of new and different games like Pac-Man, Missile Command, Centipede and Defender kept it from a long-lasting success.

The game returned again in 1985 as Pleiades, a rare sequel. Much of the gameplay remained the same, but the final stage now involved landing your ship on a very crowded interstellar runway.