Defender is a 1981 Williams Electronics arcade game, designed by Eugene Jarvis, that had the player pilot a ship to defend humanoid colonists from an alien invasion seeking to abduct and mutate them, in a side-scrolling stage with a radar showing all the off-screen action, something revolutionary for its time. Its control scheme, with five buttons, was also unusually complex.
It's one of the founding pillars of the modern shooter: it laid the groundwork for horizontal scrolling and rescue mechanics still seen in the genre today. It's demanding and unforgiving even now, but it remains an essential experience for understanding the history of American arcades.
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