Galaxian review, retro gaming
Galaxian was a popular arcade game back in the 1980s, it was very infamous and can be seen even in recent movies such as the movie about retro gaming Pixels in 2015. Overall these games have made a resurgence in popularity in the form of the retro craze. The retro craze has brought back the infamy and popularity of things from decades past especially things from the eighties such as fashion, music and you guessed it video games. Many brands are attempting to hop onto this trend with The Nintendo switch giving you a free arcade of old styled games with you Nintendo online subscription with a huge variety of old games to try out for free as long as your online payment is active. Now that we know about the craze let's return to galaxian. Like all arcade styled games there is absolutely no plot. It is in the classic low resolution pixilated style with no background soundtrack to accompany it. However while the soundtrack is non existent it makes up for this with the nostalgic and noisy sound effects.
As for the quality of the game while it is very low resolution it manages to be colourful and addictive. Thankfully you do not need to find a old arcade to enjoy this game. in 2019 NAMCO made mini arcade machines of this very game that are portable so you can have a mini arcade machine with you at all times. This design premise in my opinion is absolute genius as it not only is cute it is also fun to play and fully functional. Despite it's small size it is quite easy to operate and play the game as you have a miniature joystick and two buttons, you use the joystick to move your ship and the buttons to start the game and shoot the aliens targets while also dodging missiles sent your way. One difference from the life size version to the mini import however is you can no longer shoot while navigating the ship making the miniature version slightly more difficult than the original designed version. But I digress, the arcade design is also fully complete with all the cover art that would feature on the life size version.
To operate the game you need 3 triple A batteries, to my delight the first batters are included in the purchase and you can try the game in store before purchase. It's retail value is around 20 euros without shipping costs. Considering all features are included and you have limitless plays assuming you can purchase the batteries needed i feel this is a understandable and overall reasonable asking price. The machine comes with a off switch if you wish to stop and conserve battery power which is a thoughtful addition to the design. One more thing worth mentioning about it is that it comes on a keyring. This means you can place it on a key set or a handbag to make it more portable however keep in mind it is on the heavy side as far as keyrings are concerned and a bit bulky so I would recommend not placing it on a key set as there is also the risk of keys damaging the screen. Overall it is a great new method to get people into or back into beloved older games and I think any retro fan would like this especially as a gift item.
