Space Invaders was a classic shoot-em-up title with a ship fixed at the bottom of the screen that shoots at an alien horde creeping ever lower from the top. Galaga, and its predecessor Galaxian, are an evolution of this game type. It was developed by Namco and released in 1981, going on to become one of the most successful classic arcade titles.
Like Space Invaders and Galaxian, the space bugs cluster at the top of the screen while your fighter at the bottom shoots at them. Instead of slowly descending, though, the bugs in this game much prefer shooting back and going on kamikaze runs to try to take you out. You must shoot them all down to progress to the next stage. Every few stages will be a bonus stage, labeled as a “Challenging Stage,” where enemies fly by and you can get a lot of extra points by killing them all. Galaga was one of the first games to have such a bonus stage.
One of the most appealing aspects of the game is its power-up mechanic of getting two ships on the screen at once. A certain space bug will occasionally come down and try to capture your ship with its tractor beam. Getting captured (either by accident or on purpose) will bring out your next ship so that you can shoot down the capturing alien and attach the freed ship to your current one for double the firepower. The only downside is that now you are twice as large of a target.
Galaga is like many of its classic arcade brethren in that it lacks any kind of grand narrative and repeats its stages until memory changeover glitches everything out and the game just ends, the screen on which this happens popularly referred to as a “kill screen.” While most people will not reach the kill screen, they may at least recognize the signature sounds made by the space bugs as they speed across the star field. This is the clue for most people that a Galaga machine is lurking around when walking into any given establishment. Galaga remains a popular arcade machine where cabinets can still be found.
The high score list displayed when the game is waiting for quarters is another part of Galaga’s appeal. There’s always at least one guy that has to get a certain three letter word on the list, preferably at the top where it can stay there a while. This game is an industry classic that should be played by fans of shoot-em-ups, old school arcade gameplay, the bored, and/or anyone looking to get their possibly questionable initials on a high score list for the entire place to see.