Galaga: Destination Earth

by Hasbro Interactive

Product Features

• game

Product Details

• ASIN: B00004SPYE
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 5 inches
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,069 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Based on the classic 1980s arcade game, Galaga will have players once again blasting wave after wave of aliens as a lone starfighter pilot. The alien invaders have already destroyed the rest of the fleet, and it is now up to you to stop their advance towards Earth. While the game is set in a 3-D universe, players can still choose the classic top-down view, as well as behind-the-ship and side-scrolling views. There are 10 levels, each containing different challenges and bonus rounds. During the course of the game, players can collect new weapons to add to their arsenal, including aliens.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun attempt at a difficult remake, November 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Galaga: Destination Earth (Video Game)

Just how do you modernise a classic which at it's heart relied on repititive, similar gameplay for minutes on end? I have to admit I never clocked Galaga. Why? Becuase the original, whilst fun and addictive, simply got boring past wave 15 and the diffculty level was managed by speeding everything up.

Hasbro appear to have been very careful in preserving those elements which made Galaga a great shooter. In my mind those were: precision shooting, predictable aliens, captured ship - and the double ship action that inevitably followed - and a persisitent wave of around 40 opponents to shoot at.

This game introduces: multiple camera angles (more later), upto four captured aliens (excellent for blasting), 15? new enemies, more weapons - via the captured aliens, a standard 'save the world' storyline backed by some nice FMV, 9 levels and a bonus techno style level for practising.

Galaga introduces regular camera changes keyed to the background. There are 3 standard views (3D - like StarFox, top down and side on and 1 special view - a tip of the hat to Tempest I guess). You can also control some of the background surface guns to shoot up at the aliens for a few seconds before flipping back to your safely parked ship - this is actually pretty cool but could have been executed better.

Throughout all the views the aliens stream in like trains executing their own complex patterns before joining a large central wave of aliens somewhere in the middle of the screen and then coming back at you in small groups of spiralling baddies. There's not many games on the PS where there are always 20 to 30 opponents on screen to shoot at and a fairly detailed background moving along at around 30 frames per second.

3D is a new view, like Star Fox as I said, and the gameplay is a little difficult here primarily becuase it's hard to stay on target when following the incoming aliens amongst the *sometimes* excellent but often cluttered background graphics. It's even harder once they've formed the wave and begun their attack patterns. It must have been diffcult when designing this view as, unlike StarFox, Galaga IS a wave based shooter. This version places that wave in the complexity of a 3D world and moves through it forcing the player to avoid obstacles and background elements whilst still expecting him to track and aim at up to 30 aliens moving and swirling around. Yet, it is strangley satisfy to kill an entire stream of aliens and be awared a bonus for doing it...

Top down is the classic Galaga view and here the gameplay is very similar to the original with very few obstacles in your way. Side on is basically like top down but scrolling left to right in stead up top to bottom. Both these views are the easiest to master.

On the whole I found the game enjoyable. The new features serve to enhance the core of the game, which is blasting aliens after all. The graphics are good and actually the sound is, for once, not bad either. Gameplay is limited but then so was the original but this has, at least, been substantially varied by the new views, gun control bits and extra 'capturing' ability of your new ship and new aliens. The game has been packaged fairly well with FMV and a decent back story.

For the price, I recommend it especially for nostalgics and casual gamers alike.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I liked the old arcade game better, December 18, 2001

By 

Susan Hinojoza "It's a full life." (Union City, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Galaga: Destination Earth (Video Game)

I was expecting to have whistling insect-like ships hurtling out of the sky at me and bonus rounds like in the original arcade version. Instead, they programmers have made the game 3D to make it more realistic, and your ship is much more maneuverable. The game isn't BAD, but I was expecting retro. Oh well. Guess one can't live in the past.

Buy this game if you like flying spaceships through obstacles and shooting enemies. Don't buy it if you expect to play the arcade version on your Playstation. It ain't gonna happen.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good attempt at modernising reptitive and limited game play, November 21, 2000

By 

"henryclay" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Galaga: Destination Earth (Video Game)

It was hard to see how a modern shooter could be made from the limited and repititive game play in the original Galaga. Galag 88 improved on this by introducing more elements and pickups or a sort.

This version of Galaga provides a feeling of the original (spiralling aliens, precise shooting of streams and the usual Galaga 2-shot action and double ship capturing). It goes further by providing additional camera angles, aliens, weapons, missions and environments loosely tied together with the standard 'Save the World' storyline. Side, top and 3D behind view are all present, and even an tip of the hat to Tempest in some sequences.

The difficulty is that the transition has clearly not been easy. In the 3D view it's quite diffuclt to aim. If you remember the original all you had to do was line up. However in 3D is more difficult to stay on target. A bit like Starfox without the draw distance of the N64. I guess keeping the background and lots of aliens on screen at the same time must be quite difficult for an aging Playstation.

Graphics and SFX are good quality and frame rate seems standard at 30FPS. Options are limited but then so is my time.

For the price it's a good bit of fun.