Star Raiders

Star Raiders is a first-person space combat simulator for the Atari 8-bit computer family. It was developed by Doug Neubauer, an Atari employee, and released by Atari as a cartridge in 1979. The game is considered the killer app of the platform. It was later ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and Atari ST. The game simulates 3D space battles between the player's ship and an attacking fleet of alien "Zylon" ships. Star Raiders was known for its graphics, which offered forward and backward first-person views in addition to various map and distant views, with movement represented by a flowing 3D star field as the player fought enemy spaceships. Although first-person target shooting games already existed (including Cosmic Conflict from 1978), Star Raiders offered significantly higher image quality and more complex gameplay. It inspired imitators in the 1980s as well as later-generation space combat simulation games, including Elite, Wing Commander, and Star Wars: X-Wing. In 2007, Star Raiders was included in a list of the 10 most important video games of all time compiled by Stanford University's History of Science and Technology Collections.