Missile Command must be one of the most well know arcade games of all time.

Missile Command was a 1980 arcade game by Atari. (Also licensed to Sega for European releases).

The 'plot' of Missile Command was very simple. The player had six cities which were being attacked by an endless hail of incoming ballistic missiles, some of them even 'splitting' like multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles.

In later levels smart bombs would appear which evaded a less than perfectly targeted missile making them quite difficult to destroy.

As a regional commander of three anti-missile batteries, you had to defend the six cities in their zone from being destroyed. If all of the cities were destroyed then it was game over.

Many versions of Missile Command made it onto the ZX Spectrum - and below we have a listed some of the more notable ones. You can't have a retro gaming article without a bit of Missile Command - we hope you enjoy it....

The sinister sounding Armageddon was released by Ocean Software in 1983.

Based on Atari's Missile Command it was a nice version for ZX Spectrum gamers.

It was different from the original due to the fact that missiles that you fired were not draw out as a line (like they were in the Atari version). In Armageddon you actually saw your little missle launch and fly to wherever you had fired it.

The cross hair movement was smooth and responsive and made aiming against the bad guys simple enough.

Ocean's Armageddon was a playable and slightly different version of Missile Command.

Armageddon was another Missile Command type game on the ZX Spectrum. This version was released by Silversoft in 1983.

Similar to Missile Command playing wise, it did not quite have the smooth cross-hair movement of Ocean's game. The smart bombs were in there as well as the incoming ballistic missiles and over all Armageddon was a decent enough effort.

This game (despite being nicely presented) probably lacked the overall polish of other Missile Command type game. It's worth a look though.

Missile Defence was a released for the ZX Spectrum by Anirog software in 1983 (1983 certainly seems the year for Missile Command type games eh?)

Missile Defence came in 16K and 48K versions, and is probably the most playable and frenetic of the Missile Command games available on the Sinclair machine.

Each level increased in speed and number of incoming missiles. With enemy bombers making things more hectic, hard to kill smart bombs and fast firing rockets - Missile Defence was a very playable game.

The sound effects really captured that 'arcade game' feel and we reckon Keith Burkhill's Missile Defence is the best game in this genre you could get for the Spectrum.

 Remember these games (and more!) can be seen on our dedicated ZX Spectrum site which has reviews, images, videos, a quiz and even interviews with industry legends!

All relevant links are in the links section below. Thanks all!