Information about Galaga

Galaga
galaga.png
Developer(s)	Namco
Publisher(s)	Midway
Release date(s)	1981
Genre(s)	Fixed shooter
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Platform(s)	Arcade, NES, MSX, Game Boy Color, Atari 7800, BBC Micro, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Windows, Game Boy Advance, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable, Virtual Console, Mobile phone, Wii
Input	2-way Joystick; 1 button
Arcade cabinet	Upright, cocktail, cabaret
Arcade system(s)	Namco Galaga
Arcade CPU(s)	3x ZiLOG Z80 @ 3.072 MHz
Arcade sound system(s)	1x Namco WSG (3-channel mono) @ 3.072 MHz 1x Namco 54xx @ 1.536 MHz Additional discrete circuitry
Arcade display	RGB raster, vertical orientation (19-inch diagonal)

Galaga is a fixed shooter arcade game that was released by Namco in 1981. The US version was released the same year under license to Midway.

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 (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 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.
• In two-player mode, 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.

Bugs

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 two enemies in the first level and then dodging their shots for about fifteen minutes. The same 'cheat' can be performed by destroying all enemies except the left-most one on the bottom row.
• 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 effectively locks up on Stage 0 due to there being no enemies. At this point, the game must be reset.
• 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:

• Nintendo Entertainment System (distributed by Bandai America)
• MSX
• Game Boy (bundled with its direct predecessor, Galaxian)
• Game Boy Color
• Atari 7800
• BBC Micro
• GameTap

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. [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 successful enough to spawn several follow-up games.

Complete arcade series

1. Galaxian (1979)
2. Galaga (1981)
3. Gaplus (1984)
4. 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 rereleased 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.

Galaga: Destination Earth

In 1998, an updated classic version of Galaga was released for Windows, PlayStation, Game Boy Color called .

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 MacOS.

The open source xgalaga ([3]) runs on systems using X Window, such as Linux.

Galaga in popular culture

• The TV series Lost included a submarine named , in honor of the arcade game. Writers of the series would often play the game between writing sessions.^[1]
• 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.^[2]
• The 2006 film Grandma's Boy included Galaga-oriented opening credits, including the music.

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

External links

• Galaga at the Killer List of Videogames
• Galaga at MobyGames
• Official Namco Galaga Cell Phone Game Webpage
• The Arcade Flyer Archive entry for Galaga by Midway Mfg.

•  • [ e] Galaxian series

Galaxian • Galaga • Gaplus/Galaga 3 • Galaga '88 • Galaga Arrangement Galaxian • Attack of the Zolgear