Galaxian

""All modern games are vain, they're evil, and they're the product of the dark lord that is Satan." "What about Galaxian, would you play that?" "Oh no, 1983.""

- '1982 Amish' Fist of Fun

Galaxian is a fixed shooter arcade game that bears a lot of similarities to the Space Invaders series. You've got one ship to use against an encroaching army of space bugs that move back and forth at the top of the screen in perfect formation. Occasionally, one or two of them will swarm out of formation to attack you. Shooting the flagship enemies (the ones at the very top) garnered bonus points, depending on how many escorts it carries and in what order you shoot them. (Saving the flagship for last is always worth a big bonus).

Galaxian was one of Namco's earliest successes, and it introduced concepts such as multi-colored sprites and explosions (as opposed to the black-and-white in games that came before it) and running background "music". Sure, these may sound mundane to us gamers now, but back in 1979 when this first came out, these were a big deal.

The game spawned several spinoffs, the most famous of those being Galaga, which greatly exceeded its predecessor in popularity. Both games are staples on Namco Museum home collections, and have been ported to almost every system imaginable.


 * Breather Level: Every four levels or so in Galaga and Gaplus, you'll get to play a "Challenging Stage", where the enemies fly in formation, but don't drop bullets on you.
 * Bug War
 * The Cameo (that flagship is everywhere)
 * One-Hit-Point Wonder
 * Palette Swap
 * Word Puree Title