I spent the last three weeks in New York with Betty, away from the temptations of solitude that haunt me when I’m at home in Salford. One day we went to Crif Dogs on the Lower East Side for some of their stupidly awesome hot dogs (the one wrapped in bacon with avocado and sour cream fits snugly into the Holy Shit category), and guess what. They had Galaga. Betty plays Galaga. I do not recall if she beat my score, nor would I provide such information were it in fact to hand. Now, I was to
as some of you know, i was struck with some sort of crazy sickness on friday/this weekend. i had a fever, couldnt eat, couldnt sleep, couldnt leave the house for more than 30 min at a time (had to say near the bathroom). what caused it? might have been the heat. might have been the ebola virus. there isnt much to do when youre bed/couchridden. i coudlnt even bring myself to play assassins creed on the ps3. that would have involved thinking, paying attention and intricate button mashing - way m
XNA MVP Nick Gravelyn has developed a couple great games for the Zune 1) is Alien Aggressors its a cool little game that is reminiscent of such classics as Space Invaders and Galaga (one of my favorites of all time) and a sliding puzzle game named Scrambled Albums which allows users to: re-assemble any cover art that is on your Zune. The game allows you to customize the background color as well as choose the size of the puzzle. All options are saved and restored the next time you play. Both g
Right Now I’m Taking A Required Music Class In Which I’m Learning How To Play The Guitar But I Already Play Guitar UGH
GAME: NAMCO MUSEUM BATTLE COLLECTION SYSTEM: PSP DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER: NAMCO YEAR: 2005 I’m not typically interested in compilations of old arcade games. When possible, I prefer to play games on their original system. This is, of course, not feasible with arcade games so I typically use MAME, the arcade emulator, which plays most 70s, 80s and (2D) 90s games perfectly. Beyond that, Namco has released about a million collections of their 80s arcade hits and most of these collections contain
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Galaga
Developer(s)
Namco
Publisher(s)
Midway Namco
Platform(s)
Arcade, NES, MSX, Game Boy Color, Atari 7800, BBC Micro, Sega SG-1000, Xbox Live Arcade, Virtual Console, Mobile phone
Galaga is a fixed shooter arcade game and the sequel to Galaxian. It was released by Namco in 1981; the US version was released the same year under license to Midway.
Gameplay
Like Galaxian, the player controls a spaceship referred to in-game as a Fighter (which can move only right or left) and shoots at swarms of incoming insect-like aliens that fly in formation above him and occasionally swoop down to bomb him in a kamikaze-like dive. The enemies in the top row will sometimes dive with one or two escorts. Enemies that survive a dive will rejoin the formation from the top. When all enemies are destroyed, the player moves on to the next level. The game is over when the player's last ship is destroyed or captured.
Differences from Galaxian
The game differs from Galaxian in several ways:
Two player shots can appear on the screen simultaneously.
At the beginning of each level, enemies fly into the formation in groups, which the player can shoot on their way in. In later stages, extra enemies in each group break off and dive at the player.
Boss Galagas (green-and-yellow aliens that replace the Galaxian Flagship) take two hits to destroy. They also occasionally stop in mid-dive and attempt to capture the player's Fighter with a tractor beam. See Captured Fighters below for more information.
Galaga introduces a bonus stage, referred to as a Challenging Stage, in which a set of 40 enemies (including 4 Boss Galagas) fly in predetermined patterns. The player's goal is to destroy all 40 enemies before they exit the playfield.
Once you collect 3 ships in the original game, the score multiplies by 2 for the remainder of that round.
Starting on Stage 4, a single non-boss enemy splits into three special enemies (referred to in Namco Museum as "Fish"), two of which exit the playfield if not destroyed first. Destroying all three of the split enemies yields extra bonus points.
When destroyed, the player's Fighter emits a much more realistic explosion sound effect than the effect heard in Galaxian.
The game keeps track of all of the player's shots and displays the player's "hit-miss ratio" at the end of the game.
In two-player mode, it is possible for an experienced player to play an entire game before the second player gets a first turn.
Captured fighters
Perhaps the most famous element of Galaga is the ability for the player's Fighter to be captured by the enemy. Boss Galagas (the green enemies at the top of the formation) occasionally stop mid-dive and attempt to capture the player's Fighter with a tractor beam. If the Fighter is captured, the boss carries it back up into the formation. If the captured Fighter is the player's last Fighter, the game ends.
The captured Fighter acts as an escort to the Boss Galaga that captured it, and dives down simultaneously with the Boss Galaga. To free the Fighter, the player must destroy the Boss Galaga in mid-dive — if the Boss Galaga is destroyed in the formation, the captured Fighter will attack on its own and leave the playfield, returning with another boss Galaga in the next round.
If the player successfully frees the captured Fighter, the two Fighters join together side-by-side, moving and shooting as one and effectively doubling the player's firepower. If one of the Fighters is hit, only that Fighter is destroyed and the player continues with the surviving one. Because of the obvious benefit of double firepower, a common Galaga strategy is to purposely let a boss Galaga capture a player ship early in the game, then immediately free it.
Contrary to rumor, the double ship cannot be recaptured and released to form a "triple ship". Boss Galagas only attempt to capture when a single player ship is in play. However, the triple ship is a feature in the sequel game Galaga '88.
Bugs
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There are four well-known bugs in Galaga:
In early revisions of the game, it is possible to cause all enemies in the game to stop firing at the player by destroying all but the two blue-winged bee enemies farthest to the left in the first level and then dodging their shots for about fifteen minutes. Although the enemies will stop firing, they will still continue to dive down at the ship.
Some revisions would also allow the player to control the ship during its attract mode, which can lead to unexpected results depending on the version of the software. Some machines simply continue their attract mode, while others may occasionally crash and reset, and later revisions may report a stuck switch.
The game "wraps around" from Stage 255 to Stage 0, due to integer overflow. Because the game was not designed to handle this condition, it may reset spontaneously, play other stages with unpredictable effects, or end up in a stage with no enemies, effectively locking up the game. The exact effect varies depending on the version of the game ROM and its difficulty setting.
Player 1's score can only display up to six digits, and thus wraps around at 999,990. Player 2's score, however, can display seven digits and does not wrap around, leading to some experienced players preferring to play as Player 2.
Ports and re-releases
The original arcade version of Galaga has been ported to several systems. These include:
Atari 7800
BBC Micro
Game Boy (bundled with its direct predecessor, Galaxian)
Game Boy Color
GameTap
MSX
Nintendo Entertainment System (distributed by Bandai America)
The game has been re-released on the following systems:
Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade) - Released July 26, 2006 for 400 points (USD $5)
Wii (NES version on Virtual Console) - Released in North America on April 9, 2007 for 500 Wii Points (USD $5)
Galaga has also been released as part of the Namco Museum series of collections across several platforms:
Sony PlayStation (as part of Namco Museum Volume 1)
Nintendo 64 (Namco Museum 64)
Sega Dreamcast (Namco Museum DC)
Game Boy Advance (Namco Museum Advance)
PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft Windows (Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection)
PlayStation Portable (Namco Museum Battle Collection)
Nintendo DS (Namco Museum DS)
In 2001 Namco released a "20 Year Reunion / Class of 1981" arcade unit which contained the original Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga games. Some of the original game's bugs are still present in this version.
Namco most recently released Galaga on mobile platforms, starting in 2004. The game is available for play on most game-enabled cell phones, Palm devices and Pocket PCs. In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the game, Sprint is also offering their wireless subscribers the chance to start the game in Dual Fighter Mode..
Legacy
Galaga was successful enough to spawn several follow-up games.
Complete arcade series
Galaxian (1979)
Galaga (1981)
Gaplus (1984)
Galaga '88 (1987)
Two "rapid fire" modifications are available for the arcade version. One replaces chip 3J on the original Galaga CPU board, allowing the player to hold down the fire button and fire continuously. The other modification changes the speed of the player's shots, occasionally causing shots to pass through enemies due to the animation speed.
Galaga Arrangement
In 1995, Namco re-released this game and a game titled Galaga Arrangement, a remake of sorts that featured a number of changes from the original. The game has seen arcade and home console releases on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube releases of Namco Museum.
This game was released alongside Galaga in the Playstation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube version of Namco Museum.
Tekken Galaga Minigame
In 1995, a Galaga mini-game consisting of challenging stages was included in the Playstation version of Tekken.
Galaga: Destination Earth
In 1998, an updated classic version of Galaga was released for Windows, PlayStation, Game Boy Color called Galaga: Destination Earth.
Clones
Although Galaga was never officially released for the Commodore 64, a game called Galaxy, released by Kingsoft, was an almost exact clone. Gameplay was somewhat slower, but the tractor beam and tandem fire features were included.
A remake of the game was created by Edgar Vigdal in the early nineties for the Amiga called Deluxe Galaga. He also released a Windows compatible version called Warblade.
Also, in the late nineties, Ambrosia Software released Swoop for Mac OS.
The open source xgalaga () runs on systems using X Window, such as Linux.
Galaga in popular culture
The TV series Lost included a submarine named Galaga, in honor of the arcade game. Writers of the series would often play the game between writing sessions.
In 1982, MGM sent a Galaga machine to Matthew Broderick for him to practice prior to shooting the movie WarGames. He practiced for two months and the Galaga arcade unit makes two appearances in the film.
Further reading
Sellers, John (2001). Arcade Fever: The Fan's Guide to the Golden Age of Video Games. Running Press, 160 pages. ISBN 0-7624-0937-1.
References
^ Official Lost Podcast/April 16, 2007
^ Matthew Broderick - Fact File
External links
Galaga at the Killer List of Videogames
Galaga at MobyGames
Galaga guide at StrategyWiki
Official Namco Galaga Cell Phone Game Webpage
The Arcade Flyer Archive entry for Galaga by Midway Mfg.
