Galaga

Galaga was always one of the most popular video games during its time. It was released in 1981 as a sequel to Galaxian. The graphics and sound effects were much of an improvement from the 1979 released Galaxian. The player controls a spaceship that is situated on the bottom of the screen and that can be moved either left or right. The goal is to score as many points as possible by shooting down alien enemies.

When a player begins this classic video game, they will start at stage one. The alien enemies consists of the bee, butterfly and boss galaga. The bees will come out first, then the butterflies and lastly the boss galagas. As they come out, the player can shoot at the enemies and should try to take down as many as they can. Whatever aliens have not been shot down will end up in a neat formation. The bees will occupy the bottom two rows, the butterflies will occupy the two rows above them and the boss galagas will form on the top row. They will then start to attack by coming down and shooting. Sometimes, especially in later stages, they will come down and try to crash into the space shooter, which kills the player just the same as getting shot. If a certain alien attacks and is not shot down by the player, it will go to the bottom of the screen and reappear on the top of the screen to set itself back in formation with the rest of the aliens.

Stage one is very simple as the enemy aliens do not fire much. As a player progresses through the game, the enemies will become faster and more aggressive. They will shoot more when they come out, and that will make it more difficult to kill them before they end up in formation. This in affect will mean that there will be more enemies in formation once all aliens have came out. They will then attack!

A stage is cleared when all enemies have been destroyed. When there are only a few enemies left, they will go faster. In later stages, they will go very fast and will become very difficult to shoot down. A player will earn an extra ship when they have 20,000 points. The next one is 70,000 points and after that you will earn a free spaceship every 70,000 points. This does not last forever though as once a player reaches 1,000,000 points, there will not be anymore free spaceships.

A unique thing about Galaga was that when a player lost all of their ships and the game was over, a screen would display the players accuracy of shots throughout the game. For example, if 10,000 shots were fired in a game and 8,000 were hits, they would have a 80 percent accuracy. Some people would base their skills on this fact, while others based skills on the most points scored. As I previously mentioned, in my neighborhood, we based skill on what stage a person could get to.

Challenging Stages

During the game, there are certain stages that are called challenging stages. In these stages, the alien enemies cannot kill the player. The whole point here is to try to earn bonus points. If a player can hit all of the enemies, they will earn 10,000 bonus points and hear very exciting music when they do. If not all of them are hit, a player will still receive some bonus points, but not nearly as much.

The enemies will come out in a certain formation that must be learned by the player. They will do tricky moves to try and fool the player. There are strategies for each of the eight different challenging stages that will be learned as a player plays the game more. It is much easier to get a perfect score when someone has a dual fighter; which will be explained below.

Strategies

A Boss Galaga shooting down a tractor beam

When the game starts, a player will have one spaceship on the bottom of the screen that they will be playing with. They will also have two extra men (spaceships) on the side. When a boss galaga comes down after formation, they will sometimes throw down a tractor beam. A player should go into this tractor beam and let it capture them. The boss galaga will then hold the spaceship prisoner and will have it with them him when it comes back into formation. You will now be using your other man (spaceship) leaving you with one more. It is the same as losing one of your lives on another video game. The good thing here though is that you can get your man (spaceship) back. As you start playing again, you can shoot down the boss galaga that captured your spaceship and get your man back. When you do this, you will have two spaceships fighting for you side by side. This will give you double shooting power and make the game much easier. In farther levels, it is almost impossible to do good with just one spaceship. You will always try to keep two. While playing, if one gets shot down, you will continue playing and will try to get that second ship again by letting a boss galaga capture your fighter. A note of caution here is to never go into the tractor beam if you do not have any extra ships. If you are on your last man, and you go into the tractor beam, your fighter will be captured and your game will be over.

My personal experience playing Galaga

When I think of old school video games, Galaga will always be one of my personal favorite retro video games. I used to play it all the time at our local liquor store after school during my elementary school years. I was pretty good at it and was one of the best in my neighborhood. The farthest stage I ever reached was somewhere in the 140s. I think it was stage 143, but I am not too sure after all of these years. I actually could have gone farther, but there was some high school kids at the liquor store who unplugged the game from the wall outlet on me. I had a big crowd watching me play and these high school guys got tired of waiting I guess. I just walked away and that was that. Even though a person's score was the main object in the game, everyone in my neighborhood always just went after the farthest level they could get to. Getting to around stage 100 was normal for me. Although, I have never anyone do it, I have heard that Galaga goes to stage 255. A person will always know what stage they are on as indicator badges are shown on the bottom of the screen.

As an adult in my 30's now, I recently gave Galaga a try. I have to say that I am certainly not the same player I once was. I regularly get to stage 20-25 but had my best game go to stage 52. Playing Galaga is still as fun and addictive as it was back in the 1980s. Galaga will always be one of my favorite retro video games.

Play Galaga right now online:

You can play Galaga right now if you would like. I don't know if it's my PC or what, but this Galaga version is super fast and more difficult. Using the arrow keys on the keyboard also make it more difficult. Nevertheless, you may want to give it a shot.

Play Galaga right now!