Descpription:
Galaxian featured a horde of attacking aliens that
exchanged shots with the player. In contrast to Space Invaders, however,
Galaxian added an element of drama by having the aliens periodically make
kamikaze-like dives at the player's ship.
The gameplay was relatively simple. Swarm after swarm of alien armies attacked
the player's ship that moved left and right at the bottom of the screen.
The ship could only fire sparingly by default, but rearmed instantly when an enemy was hit.
The player would defeat one swarm, only to have it replaced by another more aggressive and
challenging army in the next screen. A plain and repetitive starfield scrolled in the background.
Galaxian was very successful for Namco and introduced several "firsts". Although true color
(as opposed to a color overlay for a game that was otherwise black and white) began appearing
as early as 1975, Galaxian took graphics a step further with multi-colored animated sprites.
Along with explosions, a crude theme song, different colored fonts for the score and
high score, more prominent background "music" and the scrolling starfield, and graphic
icons that showed the number of ships left and how many rounds the player had completed.
These elements combined to create a look/feel that would set the
standard for many other 1980s arcade games such as Pac-Man.
