"It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad game."

Stupid missiles... always going in between those enemies...

When Galaxian was released in 1979, it was another drop in the growing sea of ''kill the evil alien invaders with your spaceship'' games. It was kind of like Space Invaders, except that you had no shields and enemy fighters would actually swoop down at you, rather than slowly marching toward you. Also, it was the first game in full RGB color (according to klov.com).

Well, Galaxian eventually grew up and gave birth to a sequel called Galaga. Its gameplay was similar to that of Galaxian, except for many improvements like being able to shoot faster, and of course, the twin fighter that you could get by having one of your fighters stolen by the tractor beam. Strangely, even though Galaga was a far superior sequel, Galaxian still found its way to the NES...

Stupid enemies... always flying into me...

In Galaxian, you are a single starfighter going up against a fleet of aliens (almost as common as the hero-saves-princess genre). You have a magically infinite supply of missiles to blast aliens. However, the baddies fight back by swooping down and firing beams. Destroy the entire fleet to move on to the next stage. Repeat ad nauseum.

Most of Galaxian's challenge comes from the aforementioned innovations (well, it WAS 1979 when this first came out, and the NES game is basically a carbon copy of the original) and the many limitations of your ship. Your fighter moves painfully slowly, and you can only shoot one missile at a time. ONE MISSILE AT A TIME! Not to mention it gets pretty frustrating when your missiles keep going in between enemies!

However, besides enemies that fly toward you, Galaxian doesn't have very many innovations from earlier shooters. This still being an almost perfect carbon copy, Galaxian for the NES just feels out of place without any real special features added to it, and is easily overshadowed by Galaga, which also had a straight port on the NES. If you want a good port of Galaxian, though, I guess this game delivers what you're looking for. Just don't say I didn't warn you...

NO! YOU DUMB GALAXIP! GET OUT OF TH-- oh, drat...

Graphics: Pretty much the bottom of the barrel. 1/10

Sound/Music: No music to speak of, unless you count that... that thing at the beginning. Pretty much the same as the arcade version, and the sound of fighters flying down at you is still annoying. 3/10

Gameplay/Control: Same as the arcade version. The EXACT same. Some changes would have been nice. A bit more playable than Othello for the NES, another game I absolutely loathed. 2/10

Satisfaction/Fun: I don't know... I just don't know... 1/10

Improve: Well, they could have made it better ALL AROUND...

Similar Games: Galaga, Space Invaders, Gorf, and many, many other titles that I have forgotten to mention.

Closing Words: Perhaps that Stormtrooper from Star Wars said it best: ''Move along, move along.''

Score (not an average): 2/10

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 12/15/02, Updated 12/15/02