By now, the continual retro compilation re-releases on every platform known to man over the past 12 years must account for practically every Galaga fan out there, with MAME mopping up those who refuse to pay for their childhood memories. But such is the perfectly honed difficulty curve that even now Galaga is underpinned by a delicious one-more-go appeal, boosted immensely by the obsessive lure of global high score tables and the friends list that comes as standard with these Live Arcade offerings.īut whether it's worth the 400 points to own the full version is down to how much the latter two features matter to you. Like all arcade games of the era, the actual level design was purely to kill you off as quickly as possible so that you'd shovel more loose change into the hungry cabinet. Play it again And the prize to the most pointless use of widescreen and HD resolutions goes to. Add the primal videogaming sound effects and addictive little ditties and you'll dive straight into a gaming time warp that never fails to charm the hairy ears of a retro gamer. No power-ups (not counting the recapture of your fighter), no weapons upgrades, no continues, just level after level of screen-clearing chaos punctuated by score-boosting Challenge stages. Sure, it's as basic as it gets, tasking you with clearing wave after wave of dive bombing, missile-spewing insectoid enemies and going for the high score. shoot things that fly into you until you die - it's Space Invaders with one other idea." Technically, nothing Tom said was incorrect, but since when did simple ideas constitute a bad game? It's time to put my best 'incredulous old fart' hat on and at least try and defend what it stands for, 25 years on from its release.įirst of all, out of all the dozens (hundreds?) of Space Invaders clones that spewed forth from the arcades in the late '70s and early '80s, Galaga was easily one the most memorable, and is probably the only one I can stand playing for concentrated periods of time even now. After a while you just assume everyone must have come across certain cultural icons, but today's confession just goes to show how wrong you can be.Īnd another thing guaranteed to have the retro community marching on Eurogamer towers with flaming pitchforks was when he admitted "There's nothing to it.
Astonishing fact of the day: Tom had never played Galaga until it popped up on Live Arcade this morning, which is the gaming equivalent of never having seen, I dunno, Blade Runner.
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