The original Galaga from Namco was released in the arcades in 1981, and is the sequel to Galaxian, which was an evolution of Space Invaders. Like those previously mentioned games, you move a spaceship from left to right on the bottom of the screen, and shoot down aliens which are at the top of the screen. The aliens move a bit from side to side in a formation, and random aliens will swoop down and shoot at you. If you shoot them all, you move on to the next stage, which is the same as the last, but has faster moving aliens. The Atari 7800 version has a copyright of 1984 on the title screen, but it wasn’t released until 1986, because the Atari 7800 console was delayed until then.
What makes Galaga stand out from earlier games is it’s fast game play. Your spaceship fires very quickly, and it’s a lot of fun to blast the aliens. A neat feature of the game is that the aliens will try to steal your spaceship with a tractor beam. If they are successful, your spaceship joins the alien formation, and you lose a life. If you manage to shoot the alien holding your ship, it will descend to the bottom of the screen, and join up with your current spaceship, and you will then have twice the firepower. The downside is that you will be a larger target for the aliens to hit. It is still recommended that you let the aliens steal your spaceship, as the double firepower really comes in handy.
Every few stages is a bonus stage. All that happens here is that the aliens will fly in a certain pattern as you try to shoot them all. They don’t attack, so your only goal is to rack up points. I found these bonus stages a lot harder on this Atari 7800 port compared to the arcade, and NES versions. The Atari 7800 port is a bit different than the arcade version in other areas too. The screen is a lot wider, it’s harder to hit the aliens for some reason, and the game is a bit slower all around. The graphics, and sounds are not arcade perfect either, but they’re still good for a 7800 game. Overall I prefer the arcade, and NES versions of this game, but I still recommend picking up the Atari 7800 version, because you’ll get a slightly different, but still fun version of Galaga.
Rating – 7 / 10
TheBandit2006 
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