Namco had made a design leap beyond Space Invaders by having invaders abandon their rigid formation to dive-bomb the player's ship, and Atari licensed that formula to bring it officially to the 2600 in 1983, at a point when the "alien-blaster" genre had already been mined for several years in the console's catalog. The result is a faithful conversion within the hardware's limits, with waves that keep getting more aggressive.
It arrived late relative to the original 1979 arcade debut, but for players who only had a 2600 at home, it was still one of the best ways to experience that evolution of the fixed-shooter genre.
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