Galaga

published by Namco / Bally Midway in 1981-07, developed by Namco, running on Arcade
type: shooter
genre: Science Fiction, Fixed shooter
perspective: bird's-eye
player options: single player
languages: eng
4/5
Find at ADB
bootleg(s): Gallag / Gatsbee

Personal reviews (2)

The best games of 1981, and my all time favorite. It shows good graphics and sound. Sequel to Galaxian, utterly addictive. Used 3 Z80 processors, making it much more powerful than previous Space Invaders clones. Five Stars.


(Airhead91) - # 2007-01-02 17:29:41
One of the true classics. Five stars. Why this game has a rating of less than 5 stars is beyond me. It just goes to show you that the only thing people care about nowadays is eye-candy.


(cjlee001) - # 2007-01-02 17:29:41

Official description

Introduction

GALAGA is a one or a two player game.
There are three models: the "UPRIGHT", "MINI", and "COCKTAIL TABLE".
When the two player mode is selected on the Upright or Mini model, the players take turns at the controls to fly their space fighter(s) through the game course.
If you have purchased the Cocktail Table model of this game, the rules of play are the same. The only difference is that in the two player mode of the Cocktail Table game, the picture flips to face you when it's your turn.

When playing this game, you are the pilot of a space fighter stationed in space to defend your planet against the on-coming hordes of invaders.
Your mission is to destroy as many of the enemy ships as possible.

These invaders arrive in convoys. They will attack you while swerving back and forth across the screen, dropping bombs all the while.
Certain of the enemy ships can put out a tractor beam and capture your space fighter. That fighter changes color from white to red and stays with that particular enemy ship for the rest of the game. You can get it back by destroying the enemy ship that captured it while they are both attacking your current fighter.
If you do this, the rescued ship changes color again from red back to white, and links up with your current fighter. This doubles your fire power.

As your skill level increases, the number of attackers coming at you at any one time and the speed with which the enemy ships attack is gradually increased, plus their attack patterns become more and more complex.

Bonus ships are awarded to you periodically throughout the game as you reach or pass certain preselected point values.
Each enemy ship has an assigned point value.

Major New Features

Two major new features of your GALAGA game are: 1) The player is given the chance to double his fire power at certain points throughout the game, and 2) The game has a rapid fire (automatic firing) option whereby the player just holds the FIRE button down and his space fighter continues to fire at the GALAGAS in bursts of two missiles each.
To double his fire power, the player must let one of his space fighters be captured by one of the GALAGA command ships and then rescue it.
The GALAGA command ships MUST BE SHOT TWICE to destroy them. When shot once, they change color from green to blue. When shot again, they explode.
The rescued fighter then links up with the one that rescued it and they now work as a team - both moving together and firing at the same time.

Game Objective

The object of the game is to survive as long as possible while destroying as many attacking ships as you can.
As you do this, each following convoy of attackers will be harder to destroy.

# 2021-12-25 15:13:53 - official description - Game manual

Technical specs

software: Emulated on MAME,
hardware: Namco 3xZ80 System,
display: raster

Contributors (9)

AndreaD
teran01
zerothis
dandyboh
Air Head
cjlee001
Sanguine
uvlbot-1
Trypticon

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Galaga in-game screen.
Galaga
Galaga
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