Galaxian, Galaga, and Gaplus

[mbd30]

Hands down for me is Gaplus! It is the unsung hero of the 3 games. Most people do not understand it but its powerups and gameplay are the best in my opinion. The Bonus levels are juggling levels and most people cannot figure that out haha..

 

In any case look for a great version on the original Namco Musuem for the PS1.

 

More like most people have never even heard of it.

[Silverfleet]

 

It was renamed Galaga 3. There's actually a completely different game named Galaxian 3.

Yeah, that's what I meant. I had Galaxian on the brain! Galaxian 3 is that giant sit-in rail shooter game.

[Jess Ragan]

Eh... I'm calling shenanigans on that video clip. Sometimes the collision detection works, and sometimes enemies seem to slip right through the player's ship. What's going on there? Either the hit boxes are really tiny or this is tool assisted. Also, the ship the player uses doesn't seem to be the default.

 

Anyway. I'm looking at the footage and it's kind of surprising how many sound clips I lifted from Gaplus when I made my Game Boy Advance port of GORF, uh... (counts on fingers) NINE YEARS AGO?! Most people on AtariAge don't seem to like the sound effects in that game but I guess I was one of the exceptions.

 

(Also, those little yellow diamonds that appear out of nowhere and rain shrapnel down on your head? Total bullshit. Apparently Jeff Minter snuck into the design room at the last minute with his annoying mantra of "you don't have to SEE it to be able to DODGE it.")

[negative1]

galaga all the way for me.. been getting better at this year. i usually quit at a million,

but i hit 1.7 earlier this year, and killscreened the arcade 1up version a few weeks ago at just over 3 million.

 

i've hit 20k on galaxian, and when it came out, although i liked shooters, and space invaders, i only played

it a few times before moving on. didn't have the patience for it.

 

one thing about galaga, was learning the no-shoot trick made it a lot easier to practice and get good at it.

i HATE the turbo fire galaga, as there is no challenge in that version at all.

 

i played gaplus a decent amount, and still like the challenge, power-ups and other strategies in it.

 

love galaga 88, but didn't know about the triple ship and other features until recently, the bonus stages are great...

 

 

i also love the challenge of galaga legions, and the throwbacks (especially if you put the classic skin on it), trying

to get through all the levels in one game. the DX version made it too easy of course.

 

the galaga assault arcade game is cool, with terrible controls on that big joystick, but you can set the game to be

in arcade mode, and not give out tickets. would like to play that more.

 

 

 

later

-1

Edited December 17, 2018 by negative1

[Silverfleet]

So, because of this thread, I went back and fired up Gaplus/Galaga 3 over the weekend. Honestly, it's not bad! The one thing that throws me off is the ability to move up and down; I think it actually makes it harder to avoid diving ships and bullets. In other shooters, you really need the ability to move in all directions, but in Galaga/Galaxian, due to the vertical orientation and smallish playing field, side to side is all you really need. Sucking up 4 ships with the tractor beam and laying waste to everything is pretty cool, too.

Still don't like it as much as Galaga, Galaxian, or Galaga '88 though.

[Trinity]

[Classic Pac]

Always have loved Galaga, never really liked Galaxian. Only ever played Gaplus when I picked up a retro collection for my PS1. Turns out I didn't like it.

[Tanooki]

That's a solid little video of Galaxian, never did really occur to me the bugs adapted to player movement as I just thought they'd face you whenever you slid away as they'd twist.