Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainments (Galaga)

Max M*****

English 177

February 24, 2014

CATALOGUE OF OBSOLETE ENTERTAINMENTS

GAME: GALAGA

Format: Coin-Op Arcade Machine

Manufacturer: Midway of America

Year: 1981

CPU: 3x ZiLOG Z80 @ 3.072 MHz

Sound: 1 × Namco WSG (3-channel mono) @ 3.072 MHz, 1 × Namco 54xx @ 1.536MHz

Resolution: 224 x 288 pixels

The beloved successor to Galaxian hit the arcades of North America in 1981, falling underneath Donkey Kong’s shadow in the gaming world, like most games released that year. Namco’s only saving grace was the fact that the company released six games during the span of that year, keeping their profits just high enough to blockade the submission of the company to Nintendo or Konami.

Galaga follows the start of the seemingly endless amount of vertical space shooters. Since 1979, ten “Galaxian” game variants have been released. The ideas are limitless. There’s nothing quite like spending another $30 on the same game that was released a year prior.

Despite the monotonous gameplay, Galaga still had some improvements over its predecessor. For one, the graphics and colors are juiced up from the original. Flying bugs replaced the once white craft that used to only pan left to right in a repeating motion so as to throw you off. As opposed to your usual greenish solids, the ships have a wide array of patriotic colors, with some yellows and purples, and greens. Rate of fire is drastically increased, but with this also comes swooping squadrons of alien ships dropping pixelated bombs on your fighter. It’s much more difficult to dodge laser fire without the three walls that your ship could hide behind in the first game. Judging by other arcade players is also increased, thanks to a hit/miss ratio at the end of the game. Say hello to inflated/deflated ego – as if arcade judging-eyes never happened in the first place.

Once in a while, one larger bug ship tries to hijack your fighter with a tractor beam. As if you were playing as the Millennium Falcon, the big bug...