#or how every mario game technically ties directly back to Donkey Kong. a game not named after mario at all

[all-the-pacs]

#1 - Galaxian (1979) (Yes, Actually)

What the? You said you'd be playing all the Pacs! But that's clearly Galaxian! What gives?! Well, if you'll just sit down, you'll understand a bit...

So... Technicality is a funny thing. One moment you're sitting down to play every single Pac-Man game you can think of in chronological order, and the next thing you know, you're playing a game before Pac-Man chronologically released. Such is the power of highly-specific iconography that would later come to be heavily associated with the series actually appearing in a game before it even existed!

So. Galaxian. You've probably heard of it if you've heard of video games before--or at the very least, you've heard of its older brother, Galaga. While the latter doesn't meet the requirements to be a Pac (and quite frankly, this game almost didn't), there's juuust enough here that makes us raise an eyebrow and say, "this'll do."

What's this? Why, at the top of the "Score Advance Table" is none other than... The word "Convoy"! And below that and to the left is none other than the Galaxian Flagship. On the off-chance you've never gotten far enough in Pac-Man before, or just never used his Neutral B in Smash, that there alien flagship was effectively Namco's de-facto mascot before Pac-Man really shook things up for them. As a result, it got a cameo in the first Pac-Man game and has been closely orbiting Pac-Man ever since!

Also, wait, the Galaxians are the heroes and we're just fighting aliens? That's definitely strange, seeing as in Galaga the enemies are manned by the "Boss Galaga", which seems to imply the alternative.

Though, not as strange as the fact your ship is also called a... Galaxip. Just rolls off the tongue there.

Okay, one thing that's not apparent in these still images is that this game is shrill. Like, very high-pitched and very squeaky. Especially compared to many other early Arcade games, it sticks out like a sore thumb in just how dang loud this game is. Anyways, the standard game loop of Galaxian aren't really anything to write home about--and they weren't even when the game first released. Space Invaders had already existed for some time, after all.

No, Galaxian stood out for a few other reasons. For one, as that cyan alien is kindly demonstrating, the aliens don't just sit there and take your fire, only occasionally firing back. No, when an alien wants to fire back, it descends from formation to both shoot at you and also try and take a swing at you--contact damage will kill you! Secondly, and why those Flagships are so important and why this game was as revolutionary as it was...

Yep, the enemies actively employ the buddy system. Flagships will bring up to 2 Red Aliens with them at a time, descending upon you with not only increased firepower, but the red aliens will actually serve as a meat(? spacecraft?) shield for the Flagship, tanking shots themselves to prevent you from getting a solid shot in.

They do a good job, evidently, because wow we stink at Galaxian. We'd like to think we're okay enough at video games--we've got a few challenge runs of games much more complex than this under our belt--but it just goes to show that sometimes the simplest things to grasp can totally kick you in the shins.

In addition, however, there's one last detail; should there only be a few aliens left standing, they'll enter a sort of panic mode and, instead of returning to their spot in formation, they will gladly charge you endlessly. Forever, if necessary! Until either you shoot them down or they take you out, they will endlessly circle from the top to the bottom, wrapping back around and occasionally firing at you.

So, let's say you brave the trials that the Flagship ship poises, and properly gun it down in spite of its bodyguards. The game's actually equipped to handle various possibilities and reward you accordingly for how "dangerous" the game deemed it. The factors--as far as we could tell--are if the Flagship died last, and how many Red Aliens guarding it you took out. Pictured is the result of gunning down the maximum two red aliens guarding a Flagship, before gunning the Flagship itself down. This resulted in 800 points, the maximum amount you can get out of a Flagship! It's worth mentioning you only have one bullet per round, so your aim needs to be pretty good to get this. One miss and that thing will gladly rocket to the other end of the screen, leaving you a sitting duck while the aliens get to circle back unscathed.

You may be wondering if anything unique happens if you clear the board of all aliens. Does the game end? Are the Galaxians safe from the intergalactic conflict they've found themselves in? Do the aliens do a little dance?

Nope, the round simply resets and a new set of aliens shows up. You actually get a little indicator of how many rounds you've cleared in the bottom right, however--looking it up, the game will actually abbreviate the flags if you clear 10 rounds of this. Can you imagine 10 rounds of pure, unaltered Galaxian? Too much for us, at least.

Still, this was a fun time, and we're glad we got to sit down and warm up to this project with this game. Get our proverbial feet wet, and all that. But let's be real here--you didn't come here for the Flagship. You're here for a different guy entirely.

Never you mind, we getcha, and we hear ya loud and clear. And no fake-outs next time; we're playin' the original Pac-Man. See ya whenever we get around to that one!

#all the pacs #pac man #pacman #1979 #galaxian #one of our favorite bits is when a series of games technically starts with a game seemingly unrelated #like how in raocow's ill-fated all the sonics it turned out Flicky was the first game to meet his definitions #or how every mario game technically ties directly back to Donkey Kong. a game not named after mario at all #we hope we did this bit justice