Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon (presumably because the other Apollo 11 astronauts lost to him in a game of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock) but after 1972, the American government stopped sending people out of orbit. Guess that whole Space Race game had little replay value after they won.

But just 'cause The Man didn’t care about space exploration, that didn’t mean the people had moved on. One of the very first computer games was 1961’s Spacewar! which was built by a bunch of MIT students and predated Pong by an entire decade, not mention beating Armstrong into space by eight years. By the end of the 1970s, arcades were rammed with games like Atari’s Lunar Lander (in which you acted out Armstrong’s moon mission) and Asteroids (in which you blew up, y’know, asteroids).

Throughout gaming’s various generations, publishers have never stopped sending (virtual) men into space. Which is super good because, as we learned in The Last Starfighter, a high-score in a space game just might get you whisked off to planet Rylos where you can fly combat missions in the Xurian war against the dreaded Ko-Dan Empire.

Um, anyway... here are some cool space games.

Space Invaders (1978)
They came, they saw, they conquered our world’s arcades, siphoning countless quarters (and 100-Yen coins) from the children of earth while setting the stage for a plague of carpal-tunnel syndrome to come. Guinness ranks it the top arcade title, but this still-iconic shooter also popularized the Atari 2600, ushering in the era of home consoles.

Star Wars (1983)
The rare movie license game that didn't suck, this cockpit-shaped sit-down arcade classic had you re-enact Luke Skywalker’s highly stressful kamikaze mission through the imperial trenches to fire a shot into the Death Star's itsy-bitsy exhaust port. Even the vector graphics were mind-blowing, giving many gamers their first full-on taste of 3D action.

Metroid series (1987 - 2006)
Though hard to tell under the 8-bit space suit, bounty hunter Samus Aran was gaming’s first female hero as Nintendo fired up a new space-based franchise in the wake of Mario and Zelda. The game was also pioneering its non-linearity and gritty atmosphere which was a far cry from the company’s usual cutesiness. It's continued to be a fan favourite franchise, through to the Wii smash Metroid Prime 3.

Mass Effect (2007)
Built by the good folks at Edmonton’s Bioware, this epic RPG has become the definitive modern space game, giving you a supercool spaceship, seemingly endless galaxy, eye-popping graphics and a riveting space opera storyline. Part of a planned trilogy, the 2010 sequel is being developed alongside another BioWare space game, the massively-multiplayer Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Red Faction: Guerrilla (2009)
If the U.S. had kept sending people into outer space, by now they'd have maybe colonized Mars. In this surprisingly great summer game, they already have. This third Red Faction game (the communist-sympathizing series began in 2001) is an open-world where corporate thugs run the Red Planet as a forced labour camp to mine its resources. You must join an insurgency of exploited workers against the oppressive regime and lead a revolution. Mostly by blowing stuff up.