If the term hardcore can be applied to early 80's gaming, then Defender fits the bill. Whilst Pac-man and Space Invaders (and their numerous clones) had a higher profile, mastery in either basically came down to pattern memorization. Defender on the other hand was a gamer's game. Flying a fast side-scrolling spaceship attempting to be everywhere at once, whilst rescuing little pixels and shooting bad little pixels. It was a bloody hard game that kept many a milk bar shopkeeper smiling to the continual clink of 20 cent pieces. Twenty years later and its time for a new-fangled 3d update.

We loved killing aliens back in the 80's (well except for that Spielberg phone home critter) and little has changed these days. Earth has been taken over by nasty intergalactic bugs. Humanity has retreated to the outer solar system and its up to one man, one ship to change the course of the war and lead a new offensive against these space roaches. Each successful mission will take you planet hopping from Jupiter's moons to Mars and hopefully the liberation of Earth.

Considering a modern alarm clock has more processing power than the old Defender arcade machine, ship armaments have been upgraded since the old days. Success in missions opens various ship choices, some are speedy and lightly armoured, whilst others are slow flying tanks. All have upgradeable weapon loadouts. You'll need to experiment with the different ship-weapon combos, as there are various alien bug species to shoot down in different mission circumstances. You won't for example want to take a slow moving heavily armoured fighter into a mission where defending a sprawling outpost is the objective.

The aliens themselves as you would expect are a nasty and very numerous lot, coming in both land and air species. Whilst their obsession with taking you down makes for a hard day at the office, its their unhealthy habit of kidnapping human colonists and transforming them into fast-flying deadly mutants that is the crux of the game. Most missions involve saving your fellow humans from a fate worse than death in some way. Frankly the little colonial buggers are a useless lot. You'll curse as a handful stand around getting juiced and mutated, as yet another handful demand your rescue at the same time.

Not all your human allies in the game are helpless lemmings. As there is a large scale war occurring, allied land based tank and anti-air guns are part of the arsenal. In an unexpected twist of quality, these allied units are available for you to manipulate on the battlefield. Don't like that undefended canyon entrance? No problem, just scoop up a few tanks and drop them in to guard the entrance. The option of dropping off rescued colonists at weapon factories so as to exchange them for production of land armour units adds a bit of strategy to proceedings. Whilst placement of these units never tips the gameplay balance far away from your aerial shooting career, it does convey the feeling that you're part of a larger war effort.

While not an Xbox exclusive, Defender still has a quality look about it. From the canyons of Mars to the eerie look of Titan, there's a good use of colour and textures. The beasties and weapon effects don't come close to out pacing recent efforts like Panzer Dragoon, but they fit nicely in what is at most times a 'blink and you'll miss it' speed shooter. A rarity on cross platform games is the inclusion of customized soundtracks. Roll on the best of Duran Duran for some 80's flashback gaming atmosphere.

Sadly though, there are a few problems holding Defender back. Even with the choice of ships, I didn't find one up to the job of handling the truck loads of enemies that charge down at you. Even with special barrel role and 180 degree flip maneuvers you feel the victim more than the conqueror a lot of the time. Picking up power ups on the battlefield (a necessity in the game) is like rescuing people, over-fiddly and a pain in the behind. If you see a health power up, then it should be an ease to fly into it. Instead its a case of shooting the crate, double back and hope you hit the tiny thing as it floats in midair. Whilst these are not show stopping flaws, its a pity that these problems strike at the core of the gameplay.