Spaceship Games

Spaceship games put you at the controls of a spacecraft: you shoot enemies, dodge obstacles or land with care. There are more than 200 on the site, from classic arcade games to ones with ideas of their own.

The arcade games that defined the genre

Galaga came out from Namco in 1981 as the follow-up to Galaxian, and it's still the benchmark for spaceship arcade games: waves of enemies swoop in in formation, dive at you and return to their places. Its signature trick is that an enemy can capture your ship with a beam, and if you rescue it, you fly with two at once. The list has Galaga, Galactians, Galaxy Attack: Alien Shooter, Pixel Vader and Space Smasher, which follow that line with more or less fidelity, and Atari Asteroids, which brings back another 1979 classic, with its rotating ship and the momentum that keeps it sliding.

Hypersonic and Starship Eleven stay in that ship-and-shooting territory. Astro Haze, Dark Horizon and Air Defense 3D take space combat to another level of atmosphere.

When it isn't about shooting

Monkey Lander, Dash Rocket and The Galactic Maze ask for something else: landing without wrecking the ship, dodging or finding the way out. A steady hand counts for more than reflexes here. In the landing games, cut your thrust early and correct with short taps. If you wait until the last second, there's no way to brake in time.

In the arcade games, take breaks between bursts: firing nonstop leaves you no room to move. And watch how the enemies enter, because it's almost always the same on each level and you can memorize it.

To start, pick Galaga or Galaxy Attack if you want action, or Monkey Lander if you'd rather take it easy. They use the arrow keys and one key, so they're quick to learn.

They don't all handle the same. In Galaga and its relatives, the ship slides left and right along the bottom of the screen. In Atari Asteroids, as in the original, the ship rotates, thrusts and fires, and keeps drifting even after you let go of the key, so you have to brake with some skill. If it gives you trouble, begin with the first kind.