Galaga ships to Live Arcade

By Tom Bramwell Published 26 July, 2006

400 points.

Yep, it's that time of the week again. Another "Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday", and this time it's Galaga from Namco.

Galaga, which Namco originally released in 1981, is a single-player shoot-'em-up and remains so, although it does feature worldwide, friends and personal leaderboards.

It's up on Live Arcade now for 400 Microsoft points (GBP 3.40 / EUR 4.65), although it's free to try, and it's only 15.34MB so it won't exactly take long to download.

Like Frogger, which came out a fortnight ago, the game is played in a narrow window in the centre of the screen rather than using the full width.

You can also unlock various achievements up to a total of 200 gamerpoints. These include five points for forming a dual fighter, five for downing a red captured fighter, 15 for shooting every enemy in a stage, and more for finding rare ships and reaching the latter stages.

We'll have a review soon. Next up on Xbox Live Arcade will be Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting (August 2) and another from Namco, Pac-Man (August 9).

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (32) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Azazel #1 6 years ago

    zOMG! Street Fighter!

  • Prophet_Hero #2 6 years ago

    It's a classic blast from the past but I don't think I even put £3.40 into it back then.

  • Universal_Hamster #3 6 years ago

    Roll on next week indeed.

  • #4 6 years ago

    £3.40 was quite a lot back in those days (days of 10p an arcade game).

    How times change.

  • bloke #5 6 years ago

    Yup - Galaga was OK, but not exactly iconic even back then.

    Unlike quite a lot of the old Atari stuff, for example.

  • foxy2006 #6 6 years ago

    Not to troll Galaga , but retro titles such as this should be free on Live

  • Beano #7 6 years ago

    How naive...

  • Xerx3s #8 6 years ago

    £3.40 was quite a lot back in those days (days of 10p an arcade game).

    How times change.

    it's called inflation and buying opposed to pay-per-session.

    Unlike quite a lot of the old Atari stuff, for example.

    Speaking of atari, who owns the rights to their franchises nowadays? Is it the new atari or where those IP sold off to others? It would be great to see some classics of atari. :\

  • jlaakso #9 6 years ago

    Really these other games seem like padding to build up hype for Street Fighter. It'll be interesting to see if it's the hit it seems destined to be.
    Edited by 1 at 26/07/06 @ 10:38

  • Universal_Hamster #10 6 years ago

    Its not like it explodes after you play it once.
    Own Galaga for the price of 34 games of galaga in the arcade, back in the day.

  • Carlo #11 6 years ago

    Galaga is 15MB?

    It should be 15k!

  • SwedBear #12 6 years ago

    For me it's a must buy- I spent so much money on it when I was young and we visited my grandmother down in Germany. We went to this out-door bath but all I could do was spend mark after mark on the game.

    Looking forward to sit back and see if I still can get some nice scores.

    /B

  • Perry #13 6 years ago

    Funny, I see Galaga as the ultimate iconic arcade game. I might be tempted by this, but if 1942 came out, I'd easily pay £5 for that.

  • Jesus: Action Figure #14 6 years ago

    "Funny, I see Galaga as the ultimate iconic arcade game. I might be tempted by this, but if 1942 came out, I'd easily pay £5 for that."

    I have to agree with you sir.

    Galaga is one of my all time favourite games, as is 1942. My formative years were spent getting 'perfect' scores on the Challenge stages on one and doing barrel rolls at innoportune moments on the other.

    Oh, and turning water into wine, natch.

  • towser #15 6 years ago

    They still have to charge for this as a team is still needed to port it over to the 360. £3.40 is fook all for a quality game like this IMHO.

  • NthSimulachum #16 6 years ago

    C'mon it's galaga! The best shooter of its time!

  • burntoutbanger #17 6 years ago

    Pity it wasn't Galaga '88, that is by far the better version imo.

    Oh and by the way Flying Shark beats 1942 hands down.

    FACT!

  • mrhand #18 6 years ago

    "Like Frogger, which came out a fortnight ago, the game is played in a narrow window in the centre of the screen rather than using the full width."

    Err, why? Have you seen how bad these games look on High-Def TVs?

    Frogger on a 40inch High-Def LCD
    Edited by 1 at 26/07/06 @ 12:10

  • Wobble #19 6 years ago

    yeah, but what about stree... oh, next week!

    \o/\o/\o/\o/\o/\o/

  • banjo21 #20 6 years ago

    I really cant see the point of this. 90% of 360 owners probably have a PC and have access to these games for free - and even when free I would guess most of us have 2 attempts and think "yeh, its as basic and repetitive as I remembered and not what I want nowadays". I aint going out to buy a hoola hoop coz it was something a few kids did in 1970 and I aint gonna buy old vid games. Just let it be. What next ZX80 emulators because we can? Howabout we knock out a few tower blocks of flats rather than houses? - you think that 'fad' is coming round again. Oh how the marketing folks love to cream us for some desire to be/use/live like our parents and/or our childhoods.

    PS. Hope many of you enjoy it - as always its only my opinion :)
    Edited by 1 at 26/07/06 @ 12:29

  • Perry #21 6 years ago

    @ JC Action Figure:

    Ahh yes. Perfect challenge scores were so rewarding, left you feeling all tingly inside.

    Barrel rolls in 1942 were used sparingly by myself, but upon doing one, I'd usually follow it up with another as I inevitably was pulling out of the barrel roll straight into a barage of fire.....

    Edit: Other thought, was at a holiday last year that had Galaga for A$1 a pop. Think I pumped in at least $4, so this is a bargain!
    Edited by 1 at 26/07/06 @ 12:46

  • Prophet_Hero #22 6 years ago

    "Oh and by the way Flying Shark beats 1942 hands down."

    I remember that game! I'm sure I had one of the home conversions.
    Edited by 1 at 26/07/06 @ 13:11

  • Zuiyo #23 6 years ago

    Street Fighter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • #24 6 years ago

    "Funny, I see Galaga as the ultimate iconic arcade game. I might be tempted by this, but if 1942 came out, I'd easily pay £5 for that."

    I have to agree with you sir.

    Galaga is one of my all time favourite games

    It IS iconic, no doubt about that. BUT when I got Namco Museum Battle Collection for my PSP I played Galaga...all of 2 times.

    Has nostalgic value I'll give you that - but it just doesn't have any replayability these days (not for me anyway).

    I suspect a lot of this will hold true for the Wii virtual console too - especially the 8-bit games.
    Edited by 1 at 26/07/06 @ 14:22

  • SwedBear #25 6 years ago

    You know which game I want for Xbox Live Arcade ... Gunsmoke!

    When I studied Chemistry at the Royal Institute of Technology here in Stockholm they bought a Gunsmoke arcade cabinet for our cafe. I spent lots of crowns there on the game and I would love to get a chance of doing it in the confort of my couch.

    I do actually have MAME and like a gazzillion arcade games (including gunsmoke and galaga I think) on my Media PC and a decent gamepad but somehow it isn't as conveniante as playing on the 360.

    I wonder who will come up with the idea to give away these games for free but charge 10 MS points per game :).

  • Jesus: Action Figure #26 6 years ago

    Mr T,

    I have Galaga on the GBA (NES Emu) and it's one of the most played games I 'own', especially when I'm in a brain off, shoot everything mode. You know, for those 'practicing the wrath of God' type moments.

    I can understand why some people aren't keen. I guess nostalgia isn't what it used to be ;)

    But for me it is a classic and just lots of fun.

    EDIT: Swed, I have Gunsmoke on previously mentioned GBA NES emu and also find it strangely compulsive!

    If I had a 360, I'd certainly be buying this. Along with Street Fighter of course.

    Edited by 1 at 26/07/06 @ 14:42

  • Carrybagma #27 6 years ago

    £3.40, and you get half of that back if you play well, to put towards the next game.

    What a great incentive. Wish something similar could be done with retail games.

  • escapedape #28 6 years ago

    "£3.40, and you get half of that back if you play well, to put towards the next game.

    What a great incentive. Wish something similar could be done with retail games."

    I think you're confusing Microsoft Points (which you buy and use to pay for stuff) with Gamerpoints (which are the points you use to show off how good you are at your games! Or at least how good you are at jumping through the near-impossible hoops that some developers provide)...

  • Carrybagma #29 6 years ago

    Awwwwwww is that how it works? Oh well. Thanks for letting me know.

    Still a great idea though, if perhaps a bit open to hacking.

  • LOLLERS #30 6 years ago

    hacking? what you on about?

    Pacman better not be in a little window, it's just sloppy!

  • cyber_nicco #31 6 years ago

    I enjoyed Galaga.

  • saysomething #32 6 years ago

    "Oh and by the way Flying Shark beats 1942 hands down."

    It sure does. Don't know why people keep on mentioning 1942 and not that one.