The Game: It’s a full-scale infestation! Spiteful spiders are hatching everywhere you look, and they’ve got an eye on feeding and breeding. Your blaster is the only thing stopping them, and you’ve got to be lightning fast. (Activision, 1982)
Memories: Possibly the most original arcade-ish game Activision released for the Atari 2600, Spider Fighter is a fast and furious shoot-’em-up requiring a lot of fast thinking; it’s also refreshingly free of the flicker that plagues so many 2600 games.
But it’s also unusual enough in that it doesn’t necessarily show its roots; it feels familiar due to its slide-and-shoot nature, but I can’t pin down any one arcade game that it’s borrowing from (whereas, for example, you can tell that Kaboom!‘s roots reach as far back as the obscure Atari coin-op Avalanche). Spider Fighter is an addictive Activision original.