Pepsi Invaders

Background

Pepsi Invaders, also sometimes referred to as "Coke Wins", is an extremely rare Atari 2600 cartridge. As the story goes, Coca-Cola commissioned the game as a gift for executives at a 1983 sales convention in Atlanta, Georgia. Only 125 copies are said to have originally existed. The game was never officially released, so there is no box art (it was presented to the Coke employees in a plain white box).

Gameplay

The game plays almost identically to the original Space Invaders, with a few notable exceptions. The most obvious difference is that the first five aliens in each row have been replaced with the letters "P", "E", "P", "S", and "I" (talk about annihilating the competition!)... In addition, each game session is limited to a three minute time span in which players are given an infinite number of lives. Because of this "can't lose" game mechanic, the alien behavior is also changed such that they no longer land at the bottom of the screen (which would normally end the game). And lastly, the flying saucer that appears at the top of the screen in the original game is replaced by the Pepsi logo. When the three minutes are up, the game ends and the words "Coke Wins" flash on the screen.