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Space Invaders, But Better

That’s it, that’s the review.

But no, seriously — released a mere year after the iconic Space Invaders, Galaxian feels almost like a sequel (despite being developed by Namco, while Space Invaders was made by Taito).

One of the earliest arcade games to feature a full-colour display, Galaxian follows in the footsteps of Space Invaders — you are (presumably) Earth’s last defense against waves of ruthless alien invaders, sliding slowly from left-to-right in a fixed formation above, as the strangely rainbow-hued stars of the galaxy glitter behind you.

You control a spaceship with the ability to move left and right, and to shoot lasers[1] directly upward at your foes, albeit only one at a time. Once your current shot has either hit a foe or moved off the top of the screen, you’re able to fire another.

Unlike Space Invaders, though, these aliens do not simply remain in formation, dropping bombs from above. Instead, they break formation — either individually, or as a group — and wind their way back and forth, dive-bombing towards you while dropping a shower of bombs. This makes the gameplay much more frantic and chaotic, especially as you’re required to think ahead and predict their movements — they can jink faster than you can slide left and right.

As you reach the end of the wave, you’ll find yourself constantly dive-bombed, trying to pick off the few remaining foes. The aliens differ in behaviour, too — the common blue minions at the bottom tend to have a more simple and direct attack route, while the purple and red aliens are more erratic and aggressive, and the high-value yellow aliens at the top always attack with an escort wing where possible.

Audio-wise, the invaders have a similar — yet, somehow less iconically sinister — repeating bwoop-bwoop sound as they move left and right, growing faster as the wave diminishes, along with a simple one-note tone that lowers in pitch as the aliens dive-bomb. It’s… okay, and while technically more sophisticated than Space Invaders’ sound effects, it lacks some of the iconic charm.

And that’s it, really — each successive wave beings more speed and aggression from the aliens, but the basic gameplay loop remains the same. It’s a classic high-score-chasing arcade game with fairly brutal difficulty (as was the style at the time), charmingly simple yet also surprisingly hectic and chaotic. More importantly, it paved the way for its big brother, Galaga… but we’ll get to that one later.

The Verdict

Footnotes