Starglider is a 3D video game released in 1986 by Rainbird. It was developed by Argonaut Software, led by programmer Jez San. The game was inspired by Jez San's love of the 1983 Atari coin-op Star Wars. It is a fast-moving, first-person spaceship combat game, rendered with colorful wireframe graphics (in the style of a vector monitor, as was used in the Star Wars arcade game).
The game takes place over the surface of the occupied planet Novenia, and it is the player's goal to rid the world of the mechanized Egron invaders. To this end the player is equipped with a high-performance AGAV fighter aircraft, which are armed with lasers and television-guided missiles.
Starglider is packaged with a sci-fi novella by James Follett, describing the game's background story, in which the Ergons effortlessly blitz Novenia despite the planet possessing a previously impenetrable network of utterly deadly defense satellites. The Ergons defeat the system by disguising their battleships as a flock of intergalactic migratory birds, the Stargliders (of the title). The defense satellites had been programmed not to fire on these birds (which migrated between planets regularly) and hence did not recognize the Ergon battleships as enemies, allowing the Ergons to reach the surface unopposed.
You pilot the only existing example of a prototype fighter craft, initially armed only with lasers, as the TV-guided missiles require an enormous amount of energy to launch and control, which can only be gained by induction as your craft skims over areas with high-tension power conduits.
Source: Wikipedia, "Starglider", available under the CC-BY-SA License.