Galaga

"It's Galaga alright."

The Atari 7800's short-lived life is not so much attributed to a lack of quality games, but more of a lack of original games. A very high portion of the games made for the Atari 7800 were not original titles and were just revamped Atari 2600 games or arcade ports. This is exactly what Galaga represents. This is, in essence, the exact same game that you would find in an arcade. Playing this game is a fun experience and should be experienced by every gamer who likes shooter games.

You controls a small ship that is flying through space and must destroy wave after wave of unrelenting aliens. The aliens will swoop down from the top of the screen in an elaborate fashion and then position themselves at the top of the screen in a systematic way. Once all of the aliens are in place, they will start swooping down at your ship and firing upon it and then returning back to position. Once you destroy every single alien on the screen, you will be rewarded with a trip to the next level, which is always harder than the last.

Most of the aliens you encounter will take one shot from your ship to be destroyed. Some of them will take two or more shots, and will change color indicating how many times you have hit them. There is also a third type of alien that will appear in later levels that will attempt to capture your ship. If this happens, you can either destroy the alien or let it capture your ship. If it captures your ship, you will start with a new life (assuming you have one, where if you didn't the game would be over) and you can now shoot that alien that captured your ship and then use both ships at the same time to try and conquer your enemies.

Occasionally, you will also be introduced into a challenging stage. In this stage, aliens will quickly fly on and off of your screen. They can't shoot you in this stage, but your goal is to shoot as many of them as you possibly can. If you destroy and entire wave before it leaves the screen, you will rack up bonus points. This stage is only in the game to boost your score, which will later turn into extra lives. At the end of this stage, there will be a result screen displaying how many targets you hit.

This game also has a two-player mode in it, however, unfortunately it is the kind of two player game where players will alternate turns once one dies instead of playing cooperatively, which would have been more fun.

After you have exhausted all of your lives, the game is over, and you will be shown a results page with your accuracy.

Graphics
Graphics aren't really an important factor in a game like this; however, they are still worth mentioning. The graphics are almost identical to the arcade version of the game except for your ship is smaller and has less detail and likewise with the aliens. There is a nice looking title screen also, which really shows the Atari 7800's graphical power nicely. The graphics aren't stunning throughout game play and are a little downgraded from the arcade version, but it doesn't really affect the game play at all.

Audio
The music is very well done in this game. It always gives me that warm nostalgic video game feeling when I hear it. This music is definitely the pinnacle of this game. There is a wonderful echo put on the music to make it sound even more spacey. The sound effects were good also. There was a unique sound made for each different type of alien that you subdued, which was a nice touch.

Fun Factor/Replay Value
While this game will always be a classic, there are tons of various ports of this same game that have graphical updates and slight game play tweaks that just make the newer versions more fun to play. This game is definitely a better display of the series' roots than the newer version, so that may be a contributing factor to some. If I'm in the mood for Galaga, I usually find myself playing a different version than this one, but it is still a game that is worthwhile to check out.

Final Words
There is no doubt that Galaga is one of the pioneering arcade shooters, and bringing it to the Atari 7800 was a good idea, but the game hasn't really stood the test of time. There are various better versions of this game for other systems, and this one just kind of faded away. It's not a bad game by a long shot and should be checked out by retro gamers and shooter fans alike.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/06