Together Retro: Galaga

[gtmtnbiker]

A couple weeks ago I played one of my brothers friend's cocktails with a speedup chip. HOLY CRAP! It makes the game play so smoothly, I cant go back. I ended up with 8 lives and 50,000 points before my first death, then I had to run.

What exactly is the speedup chip? Does this enable you to rapidfire by holding down the button? Or do the aliens move faster?

This was always one of my favorite space invaders type game. Nothing could ever beat this one. I played the arcade version growing up and nowadays, I play the NES version.

[noiseredux]

I know, man. I always thought of Galaga as a Space Invaders clone, but nowadays I can't even play (the original) SI anymore. I find it so slow and boring in comparison.

[fastbilly1]

The speed up chip speed up the entire game. It was set for 2.5x normal speed. So you still can only have two bullets on the screen at once, but it changed the dynamic of the entire game to fit more into a danmaku/bullet hell genre than the Space Invader inspired fixed shooter genre. All I know is that on the normal Galaga I can get bored of it after about 10 boards. This on crack version I could play all night.

[Luke]

Truth:
I held the top score on the Galaga cabinet at my local Buffalo Wild Wings for over 6 months, until it went out of service. When I first saw the Out of Order sign on the cab, it felt like a kick in the stomach.

A bigger kick in the stomach is that they got rid of Galaga and replaced it with some awful track ball golf game.

[fastbilly1]

Ah Golden Tee, the death of the fun cabs.

[RadarScope1]

I always wished that the emulated Namco comp discs should include options to speed up the game. Especially Ms. Pac-Man. That game is so much better at a high speed, but you can only get that in an arcade cab.

[Luke]

Ah Golden Tee, the death of the fun cabs.

It is Golden Tee.

The rednecks around here love it, but when I see a trackball, I want to play millipede. The guys who do play it abuse the crap out of the trackball. You know someone is playing it, because no matter where you sit in the restaurant, you'll hear a *THUD* and then either a "Hell yeah!" or "Bullshit!".

[Bikeage]

Galaga holds alot of nostalgia for me, and I still play it regularly. Luckily I have a decent arcade nearby with a Ms. Pac Man/Galaga, and at home i've got it on GBA, Wii VC, and a plug 'n play.

The first time my ship was captured and getting it back for double firepower is burned into my brain as one of the greatest videogame events EVER. Even as a kid, I realized that the harmony between the graphics, music, and gameplay gave it an edge. Others arcade games were good, some were great, but Galaga had that intangible quality that kept me coming back, quarter after quarter.

Even the name is cool. "Galaga" just sounds so mysterious and alien... any idea if it translates to anything, or is it just made up?

[noiseredux]

my new high score is 99760... which is a big deal to me. Galaga is honestly in my Top 10 games of all time all becuz of TR.

[Xtincthed]

i love this game on the NES, i think my highscore was around 100k at some point