Galaxian

The Galaxian Logo.

Galaxian (ギャラクシアン, Gyarakushian^?) is a fixed shooter arcade game developed by Namco in 1979. It was published by Namco in Japan and imported to North America by Midway. The game was highly popular upon its release, and has been a focus of competitive gaming ever since. It spawned a successful sequel, Galaga, in 1981, and the lesser known Gaplus and Galaga '88 in 1984 and 1987 respectively, as well as many ports and adaptations.

Gameplay

The player controls the space rocket Galaxip (ギャラクシップ, Gyarakushippu^?) to stop bug-like aliens invading the Earth. The enemies that move from left to right while attacking the player. All of the ships can only be shot one time. When the red bugs move with the boss, shooting the boss will award the player more points.

Ports

Galaxian has been ported for several system.

Standalone releases:

• Apple II
• Atari 400 and 800
• Atari 2600
• Atari 5200
• Bally Astrocade (Also released as Galactic Invasion)
• Coleco VFD Table Top
• ColecoVison
• Commodore VIC-20
• Commodore 64
• Mobile phones
• MSX (1984)
• NEC PC-8801
• Nintendo Famicom/NES (1984)
• Sharp X1
• ZX Spectrum
• Virtual Console (Wii)

Collections:

• Dreamcast (Included in Namco Museum)
• Game Boy:
  • Released alongside Galaga in Galaga & Galaxian in 1995.
  • Released as part of Namco Gallery Vol. 2 in 1996.
• Game Boy Advance (Included in Namco Museum Advance)
• Microsoft Windows:
  • Microsoft Return of Arcade
  • Namco History Vol. 4
  • Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection
• Nintendo 64 (Namco Museum 64)
• Nintendo DS (Namco Museum DS)
• PlayStation (Namco Museum Vol. 3)
• PlayStation 2 (Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection)
• Nintendo GameCube (Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection)
• PlayStation Portable (Namco Museum Battle Collection)
• Wii (Namco Museum Remix)
• Xbox 360 (Namco Museum)

Gallery

A Galaxian arcade cabinet.

Another Galaxian arcade cabinet.

A gameplay of Galaxian on the arcade.

A gameplay of Galaxian on the NES.

The Galaxian boss in Pac-Man, in between the grapes and the key.

Trivia

• The Galaxian boss appears as an item in Pac-Man.
• On the NES version of Galaxian, sometimes one can see a blue color glitch on the top left of the screen.
• In this game, the titular Galaxian is a group fighting against the aliens (as shown in the opening message: "WE ARE THE GALAXIANS / MISSION: DESTROY ALIENS"). In later games, the Galaga and Gaplus are the alien forces instead of the group the player belongs to.

External links

• Galaxian Virtual Console page
• Online version of the game