Galaga
| Galaga | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Studio | Namco |
| Publisher | Namco, Midway |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1981 |
| genre | Shoot 'em up |
| Game mode | Up to 2 players take turns |
| control | Joystick ; 1 button |
| casing | Standard and Cocktail |
| Arcade system | 3 × Z80 3.072 MHz |
| monitor | Grid , resolution 224 × 288 pixels |
| information | Developed during the golden era of arcade games . Ranked # 2 of Most Popular Arcade Games of All Time on KLOV . |
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Galaga is an arcade game by the Namco company. It has been one of the most popular arcade games since its debut in 1981 and is still in great demand among collectors.
Overview
Galaga is the successor to Galaxian and plays similarly. The player controls a spaceship at the bottom of the playing field and can move from left to right. In the upper part of the field, swarms of insect-like enemies keep arriving and moving in different formations. Sometimes they dive down and try to hit the player with a kamikaze action. The player's task is to shoot down all enemies with the spaceship. The opponents in the top row often conduct special formation flights with an escort. When all opponents of a level have been defeated, the next begins.
The game differs from its predecessor in several ways:
- At the beginning of each level, the opponents arrive in five groups of eight units each on the field and fly to the formation from above or from the sides. The player can shoot at them as soon as the opponents fly in. Enemies only drop bombs during the flight, there are no such attacks in the formation.
- The final boss Galaga, the green opponents in the top row of the formation must be hit twice to destroy them. You can stop while in flight and try to catch the player's ship with a tractor beam. If the ship is captured, the opponent carries it into the formation and the player loses a "life". If the player still has ships left, he can regain the ship by destroying the enemy during the flight. If that happens, the trapped spaceship is released and connects to the side of the current ship. The two ships form a pair that can fall back on a dual shot. Due to the greater width, this combination is an easier target for the opponents. If one of the ships is destroyed, the other is not affected and the player can continue the game normally. However, the captured ship can also be destroyed by the player if he shoots it in flight instead of the enemy. If the player hits his captured ship when it is not in flight, it becomes an enemy and shoots at the player.
- Galaga was one of the first games to feature a bonus round called the Challenging Stage. It consists only of groups of opponents who fly into the field, perform a formation flight and then leave it again. If the player manages to destroy all 40 opponents before they leave the field again, he will be rewarded with a bonus of 10,000 points. The double firepower of a ship combination is of immense advantage here.
Galaga can be played either alone or by two players taking turns. At the beginning each player receives three “lives” and receives one extra each time they reach 20,000 and 70,000 points, as well as every 70,000 points thereafter.
The three types of opponents give the player different scores when they are successfully shot. Blue opponents score 50 points in formation and 100 points during an attack. Red opponents reach 80 in formation and 160 during an attack, final boss 150 in formation. The score for an attack by a boss depends on whether he is accompanied by a red escort: 400 points if he attacks alone, 800 with one and 1600 with two escorts.
Bug
There are at least two known bugs in Galaga:
- One of the bugs prevents the enemies from dropping bombs. To trigger it, all enemies with the exception of the two bees in the lower left corner must be eliminated and their shots must be avoided for about 15 minutes until they no longer drop any bombs. From this point to the end, all opponents in the game are disarmed, but still dangerous due to kamikaze actions.
- You can control the game in Attract Mode. During the demonstration, when the boss Galaga activates his tractor beam, the game reacts to inputs via the joystick. The player can shoot at the boss and continue the game for a short period of time. Sometimes the ship moves strangely or the player becomes invulnerable, but every now and then the game crashes and then restarts by itself.
chronology
Galaga was so successful that several successors were developed:
- Gaplus (1984)
- Galaga '88 (1987)
- Galaxian 3 (1990)
- Attack Of The Zolgear (1994)
Because of its importance and the success it has achieved, Galaga is still popular among collectors. It is classified as one of the "Top 100 Videogames" by the Killer List of Videogames (KLOV) website . KLOV readers rank it # 2 of the best arcade games of all time, just behind Pac-Man .
Implementations
The original arcade version of Galaga was implemented for multiple platforms. The following are primarily to be mentioned:
In 2001, Namco released an arcade machine entitled "20 Year Reunion / Class of 1981" which contained the original versions of Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga . The Galaga bugs described above are still present in this version.
A port with the name XGalaga exists for the Android operating system .
Since July 26, 2006, Galaga has also been available for the Xbox 360 game console as an Xbox Live Arcade download. In March 2007 Nintendo released the NES version for the virtual console of the Wii.
Since April 8, 2009, Galaga has also been available for the iPhone and iPod touch . In addition to the original version, this version, which is sold via the iTunes Store, also includes a graphically revised “Remix” version.
Source code
The Atari 7800 source code from Galaga was available in physical form along with Dig Dug , Centipede , Robotron: 2084 and eight games when the Atari Corporation closed in 1996, reconstructed by the Atari Museum and later published.
Culture
In the 1983 feature film WarGames , Matthew Broderick plays a young hacker . Broderick's character is shown twice playing Galaga . The film studio had a Galaga and Galaxian machine delivered to Broderick's home, where he could train for these scenes for two months.
In the movie Marvel's The Avengers , one of the SHIELD agents plays the game, as Tony Stark points out.
In the 2015 science fiction comedy film Pixels , aliens attack the earth by mimicking the attacks of the game Galaga.
In the Doctor Who episode "Terror of the Vervoids" you can see two aliens playing a holographic version of Galaga in the recreation room of their spaceship.
Web links
- Galaga in the Killer List of Video Games (English)
- Galaga at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ XGalaga for Android phones ( Memento of the original from August 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Kevin Parrish: Atari 7800 Source Code Rescued - Atari released the source code for the 7800 console and games . tomsguide.com. July 7, 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2012.
- ↑ 7800 Games & Development . atari-museum.com. 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2012: “ These games were rescued from Atari ST format diskettes that were thrown out behind 1196 Borregas when Atari closed up in 1996. The Atari Museum rescued these important treasures and recovered them from the diskettes. "
