Galaga

Galaga is a fixed shooter arcade game that was released by Namco in 1981 (and also licensed to Midway). It was one of the most popular arcade games and is still sought after by collectors.

Gameplay

Galaga is a sequel to Galaxian and has similar gameplay. The player controls a spaceship (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 ship with a tractor beam. See Captured Fighters below for more information.

• Galaga introduces a bonus stage, referred to as the 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.

• Starting on Stage 4, a single non-boss enemy splits into three special enemies, 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 ship 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.

Galaga can be played by a single player or by two players alternating turns (Galaxian is one-player only). Two-player mode can be unpopular, however, as it is possible for an experienced player to play his entire game before the second player gets his first turn.

Captured fighters

Perhaps the most famous element of Galaga is the ability for the player's ship 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 ship with a tractor beam. If the ship is captured, the boss carries it back up into the formation. If the captured ship is the player's last ship, the game ends.

The captured player ship acts as an escort to the boss Galaga that captured it, and dives down simultaneously with the Galaga. To free the ship, the player must destroy the Galaga in mid-dive — if the Galaga is destroyed in the formation, the player ship 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 ship, the two ships join together side-by-side, moving and shooting as one and effectively doubling the player's firepower. If one of the ships is hit, only that ship 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.

Levels

Levels are graphically indicated by badges. There are unique badge icons for levels appear 1, 5, 10...etc.

Bugs

There are at least four well-known bugs in Galaga:

• One bug causes enemies to cease dropping bombs for the rest of the game. To trigger it, the player must destroy all enemies but the two bees in the bottom two rows of the left-most column, then wait, dodging their shots for fifteen minutes or so until they stop dropping any bombs. From that point onward until the end of the game, all enemies will effectively be disarmed (but can still be dangerous kamikazes). This bug was fixed in a later revision of the game. (This bug is not present in arcade and console re-releases since they use the latest revision of the game's code.)

• It is possible to control the game during its attract mode. During the game demonstration, at the moment that a boss Galaga begins emitting its tractor beam, the game for some reason pays attention to the joystick and fire button. A player can shoot the boss and continue to play the game for a short while. Sometimes the player's ship will move oddly or be invulnerable until the game demonstration ends; sometimes the game will crash and reset itself harmlessly. In later revisions of the software (most especially the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga combination machines), the game may freeze on an error screen reporting a stuck switch.

• Unless the machine is set on the hardest difficulty, the game "wraps around" from Stage 255 to Stage 0. Because the game does not contain programming for Stage 0, no enemies appear and the game effectively locks up, requiring the machine to be reset or power-cycled to resume play.

• Player 1's score wraps around at 999,990 (and never registers internally as greater than this number), but Player 2's score has been known to display entire scores over 10,000,000.

Galaga Arrangement

In 1995, Namco rereleased this game and a game titled Galaga Arrangement, a remake of sorts. The game featured a number of changes from the original:

• Music and sound effects have been altered.
• Rounds have been named; one is called the Asteroid Field, and the background varies (such as asteroid belt, nebulas, etc.).
• When a boss Galaga captures a fighter, a player can shoot and retrieve the fighter while the boss Galaga is still in formation. Also, the game does not stop while the fighter comes back; game play still goes on.
• Boss Galagas have been split into three different types: yellow, blue, and red. Blue has a stronger, smaller shot; yellow gives rapid-fire; and red gives reflecting shots.
• Boss Galagas still use tractor beams even if the player has a double-ship; the boss Galaga simply steals one of the ships.
• In Challenging Stage, there are more varied formations, and the screen tilts around, making it tougher to secure a lock on the Galagas.
• There are more varied formations; Galagas come in different ways now, and there may be 2-3 formations before completing a stage.
• A screen (intermission) after beating a stage will pop up, stating destroyed-to-miss ratio and percent of defeated Galagas.
• Shooting rules have been considerably relaxed, with the player able to shoot more rounds faster than in Galaga
• Simultaneous two-player action is available. The second player will appear as a blue fighter.
• If two-player is enabled, then the intermission will display a WIN-LOSE screen for the two players before going on to the next stage.
• In addition, after the Challenging Stages the player that shot the most Galagas will receive a 10,000 point bonus as a reward.
• By inputting Left-Right-Left-Right-Up-Down-Up-Down, the game displays a clock at the bottom of the screen, showing total time played in the game. The clock does not run in the Challenging Stage nor between the intermissions.
• 30 stages of gameplay, with a final boss at the end of stage 30 named "King Galspark" (a huge purple and red bug in the "Enemy-Comb Zone").

The game has seen arcade and home console releases. The home version has been released 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.

Ports

The original arcade version of Galaga has been ported to several systems. These include:

• Nintendo Entertainment System (distributed by Bandai America)
• Game Boy Color
• Wii (as part of Virtual Console, NES version - released April 9, 2007 (In North America) for 500 Wii Points)

Galaga has also been released as part of the Namco Museum series of collections across several platforms:

• Nintendo 64 (Namco Museum 64)
• Game Boy Advance {Namco Museum Advance)

In 2001 Namco released a "20 Year Reunion / Class of 1981" arcade unit which contained the original Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga games. The bugs described above are still present in this version.

Namco most recently released Galaga on mobile platforms, in 2004. The game is available for play on most game-enabled cell phones, Palm devices and Pocket PCs. [1] 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.[2].

Legacy

Galaga was so successful that it spawned several follow-up games, though none were as popular as the original.

The Complete Arcade series:

1. Galaxian (1979)
2. Galaga (1981)
3. Gaplus (1984)
4. Galaga '88 (1987)
5. Galaga Arrangement (1995) - released as part of Namco Classics Collection Volume 1

Because of its significance and success in the video game industry, Galaga is popular among collectors.

Two "rapid fire" modifications are available. 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 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.
• The Boss Galaga and two of the drones appear as bonus fruit alongside the Galaxian flagship as bonus fruit in Pac-Man Championship Edition.

Further reading

• Arcade Fever: The Fan's Guide to the Golden Age of Video Games by John Seller

External Links

• Original text from Wikipedia
• Galaga at Virtual Console Reviews
• Official Namco Galaga Cell Phone Game Webpage
• The Arcade Flyer Archive entry for Galaga by Midway Mfg.
• Galaga Maniax - Unofficial Fan Site