Japanese import Moon Cresta bursts into American arcades, challenging veterans of previous slide-and-shoot space games to dodge its never-ending waves of multi-colored invaders. Also on display is the best metaphor ever for “extra lives”: the player has to assemble a three-stage rocket to fight off the attackers. 
Cinematronics’ vector graphics arcade wargame Armor… Attack hits the market, pitting players against armed ground vehicles and enemy helicopters. (Of course, players have to insert their entire defense budget of 25 cents first, and even then, it’s still down to reflexes.)
Atari releases the arcade game Asteroids Deluxe in the United States, adding shields and other twists to the familiar game play of the smash hit Asteroids.
Midway releases the arcade video game Gorf, a collection of space-shoot-’em-up themed minigames with voice synthesis. The game started its development cycle as a licensed arcade game based on Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Cinematronics releases the cult classic arcade game Star Castle, a vector graphics game sending players on a mission to create a tiny vulnerability in a space station’s colorful rotating defense shields. Once its shields have been penetrated, a well timed shot can destroy the enemy fortress.
Atari releases the arcade game Battlezone in the United States, bringing back Tank’s double joysticks but putting the player in the tank in a first-person perspective (complete with “shattered glass” as enemy artillery takes the player’s tank out of commission).
Pinball manufacturer Stern Electronics establishes a firm foothold as a maker of video games with the paranoia-inducing coin-op Berzerk. Featuring voice synthesis disturbingly similar to the voices of Battlestar Galactica’s Cylon warriors, and a bouncy, smiling killer named Evil Otto who appears with little or no warning, Berzerk becomes a cult classic (even meriting a serenade on Buckner & Garcia’s 1982 album Pac-Man Fever).
Boasting a tricky dual-joystick control scheme allowing players fine-tuned control over their on-screen character’s movements, Crazy Climber invades arcades in the States following its introduction in Japan. Cheerfully urging players to “Go for it!”, the cult arcade classic makes splattering on the sidewalks seem fun.
Having just opened up its American branch, Japanese video game manufacturer Nintendo introduces its first arcade game, the virtually-unknown space shooter Radar Scope. The game fails to make a splash, and many of the Radar Scope cabinets in Nintendo’s warehouse are later converted into their next (and far more profitable) game, which involves a plumber saving a woman from a gorilla.
Namco releases the arcade video game King & Balloon, a shooter game with cute characters and a medieval setting, with early speech synthesis. Though the game becomes a staple of the company’s later arcade compilations on home consoles over a decade later, it does not gain a wide following in arcades.
After a mad last-minute rush to prepare it for display at the 1980 Amusement Machine Operators of America (AMOA) trade show, Williams Electronics debuts what will become its most successful arcade game, Defender. With a more complex control panel than nearly any video game since Computer Space, Defender is ignored at AMOA, only to become a top earner in arcades (and a source of bragging rights for those who master the control scheme).
Universal (a video game manufacturer unrelated to the Hollywood studio of the same name) introduces the minor arcade classic Space Panic, a game which goes down in history primarily for inspiring the home computer game hit Lode Runner later in the decade. Space Panic is also the first arcade game in which success is dependent on the player climbing ladders, a year before the release of Donkey Kong.
American pinball manufacturer Stern Electronics releases a video game licensed from Japanese game maker Konami Industries, Scramble. Though it earns a small but loyal following among arcade gamers, Scramble‘s true claim to history will be in setting a legal precedent: it later becomes the first video game whose code is copyrighted as a literary work in its own right as Stern seeks to take down bootleggers who copy the game’s program and brazenly market it under the same name.
Sega releases the arcade game Pulsar in American arcades. The coin-op video game is a maze game pitting the player’s tank against enemy tanks and the structure of the maze itself.
Data East releases the arcade video game Lock ‘n’ Chase in the United States. Though bearing some distinctive differences from Pac-Man, the game gets lost in a glut of Pac-Man knock-off coin-ops also in circulation.
Atari releases the arcade video game Warlords, in both upright (for one or two players) and cocktail (up to four players) models.
Atari releases the arcade video game Red Baron, a vector graphics game of first-person biplane dogfights.
Atari releases the vector graphics arcade game Tempest, created by programmer Dave Theurer. This is the first game to use Atari’s “Quadrascan” vector display, capable of displaying a limited color palette instead of the strictly black & white graphics of the company’s previous vector games.
Midway releases the arcade video game Wizard Of Wor, a maze shooter for one or two players who can play cooperatively or against each other – though in many cases, a single game can start cooperatively and end competitively!
Better known for making jukeboxes and speakers, Rock-Ola dips its toes into the video game industry by releasing Warp Warp in the United States. The arcade game, originated in Japan by Namco, features cute, colorful characters in a maze setting, not entirely unlike Pac-Man, but fails to catch on in American arcades.
Exidy’s swashbuckling coin-op video game Venture arrives in arcades, letting players control the actions of the bow-and-arrow-shooting treasure hunter, Winky. The game’s unique structure provides an early example of an “interactive graphical menu” letting players choose which treasure room to plunder next – but a choice has to be made quickly, in real time, because there are still monsters that can kill Winky on the menu screen.
Sega releases the arcade game Space Odyssey in American arcades. With its depiction of Schwarzchild radius-style black holes scrolling under the player’s spaceship, this is among the first arcade video games with isometric 3-D graphics.
Sega introduces Astro Blaster to an arcade scene already awash in space shoot-’em-ups, but the game carves out a small niche for itself. Its greatest contribution, later on, may be in providing much of the inspiration for Activision’s home video game hit Megamania.
With game play similar to the coin-op hit Defender (but more detailed, colorful graphics), Universal introduces the minor arcade hit Cosmic Avenger in America. Though it never really sets earnings records, home video game rights are eventually snapped up by Coleco, which will offer a home version of Cosmic Avenger on its upcoming Colecovision console.
With one unprofitable flop behind it, the American branch of Nintendo has a lot riding on its second arcade game. Fortunately, it strikes gold with Donkey Kong, the coin-op which launches the careers of both Shigeru Miyamoto and a plumber named Mario (also referred to as “Jumpman”). Nintendo is now in America to stay.
Challenging players to fly their space fighter through an array of twisty mazes in an attempt to reach the final goal – destroying the “brain” of an enemy rocket – SNK’s Vanguard is released in American arcades. This is one of the first coin-op video games to present the player with an option upon running out of “lives”: allow the game to end, or insert another quarter or token to continue from the last position.
The first game generated by west coast programmers working for Taito’s new American game design division, Qix hits the arcades, reeling players in with its weird sound effects, abstract game play, and an enemy that anticipates the look of Windows screen savers years before either Windows or screen savers exist. Qix becomes an instant cult classic, though it proves to be nearly impossible to replicate with the current generation of home video game hardware.
Not wanting to miss a piece of the Pac-Man pie, American pinball & video game manufacturer Williams Electronics releases Make Trax in Stateside arcades, one of the few Japanese-made games licensed by Williams for American release. Yet another maze chase game, Make Trax at least has the novelty of turning the player into a paintbrush trying to coat the entire maze with color.
Created by Japanese video game manufacturer Konami (which has yet to establish a corporate foothold in North America), Frogger is introduced to the United States by Sega, and becomes an instant arcade hit whose cute graphics make it a natural for Pac-Man fans. In time, Frogger inspires a rock song, a cartoon, and numerous home video game cartridges.
Centuri releases the arcade video game Pleiades (spelled correctly on the arcade cabinet, though the game identifies itself onscreen as “Pleiads”), licensed from Japanese company Tehkan International.