Galaga

Galaga may win the award for most improved sequel of all time. Galaxian was a solid foundation for a game, but Galaga improves it in every way. It’s faster, more challenging, and less predictable. Every time you play it you’re going to get a slightly different experience. The enemies in Galaga relentlessly attack. There’s no more waiting around for something to happen. They shoot, dive, and split into even more monsters. You have bonus stages, enemy formations to shoot down, and of course the ultimate decision for gaining even more bonus points.

So what is the ultimate decision? Certain enemies will capture your ship. You can either avoid them to save your ship, shoot them while diving to get a double ship, or shoot your ship to get bonus points. I have always gone the double ship route. I am a bit hopeless with a single ship. It might be because I’m left handed and have never been able to push the button that fast. I should try to play some more one ship games sometime. It’s a fixed screen shooter that really gives the player a chance to experiment.

So this one is going to be very easy to rank. I almost hated to play it because I knew it was going to go straight up to the top and probably stay there for a while. If you consider yourself a gamer you need to play Galaga at least once. It’s one of the seminal games of all time. It’s another one that was never ported to the Atari 2600 so I grew up playing the Atari 7800 version. That version was alright, but twenty years ago the PS1 version blew my mind. It’s the highlight of the entire Namco Museum.

1. Galaga

2. Pac-Mania

3. Metro-Cross

4. Dragon Spirit

5. Baraduke

6. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

7. Galaxian

8. Gyruss (2600)

Next time: The lesser known third game in the series!