Galaxian

Galaxian Arcade Game

Galaxian, the predecessor to Galaga (1981), was created by Namco in 1979 and released by Midway in the USA.  The game’s similarity to Space Invaders was not by accident, as Namco tried to replicate Taito’s success.  And they succeeded, as Galaxian continues to be a popular 80’s game.  In Galaxian, the player controls a shipped, called the Galaxip, while trying to shoot attacking alien-bug creatures, called Galaxians.  Unlike Space Invaders, some of the Galaxians would kamikaze attack the Galaxip.  The player used a joystick to move the Galaxip left and right, and a fire button to shoot the Galaxians.  The Galaxip could only have one missile on the screen at a time, so misplaced shots meant a longer than normal delay in shooting again.

Galaxian Arcade Game Cabinet

Galaxian was released on practically every home system you can think of, from the Atari 2600 to the Commodore 64.  Many of you will remember the table top arcade version as well.  There have been a number of contemporary console releases of the game on Namco Museum for systems like PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 (and Wii).