I’m a huge fan of classic Namco arcade games, like Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig Dug, etc.  So when I saw a new Galaga game on my iPad and it was free to play, I just had to check it out and review it.  It’s available on iOS, Android, and Google Play, but reviewed on iPad here.

At first glance it looks like Galaga with better graphics.  Shoot at waves of bugs and avoid being shot yourself.  Use the touchscreen to move your ship around the playfield.  The ship fires automatically, so you just have to worry about avoiding enemy bullets, mostly.  You can pick up temporary power-ups like guided missiles, turrets, and spread shots.  The trick to getting a double ship by letting one of the bugs suck up one of yours doesn’t work here, but you can still shoot down bugs carrying captured ships to give yourself a temporary double ship, too.

You only get one life, and then it’s Game Over here.  I do like the little touch where when your ship explodes into pieces, the space bugs gravitate towards it like flies on food.  After that, the game will reward you with coins and warp capsules (from Galaga ’88).  Use coins to upgrade your ship so that your temporary power-ups will last longer.  If you get to certain points in the game (like past bosses and such), you can use warp capsules to continue where you left off.  Otherwise you start at the beginning.

You can buy other ships with real money, and the ships are based on spacecraft from other Namco games, so the classic Namco junkie in me liked that.  The other ships have different power-ups.  You can buy the Galaxip from Galaxian, the spacecraft from StarBlade, and the Solvalou from Xevious.  They’re only 99 cents each to buy, but I still didn’t get them because of the problems Galaga Wars has.

As a free-to-play game, I didn’t have any of the problems these types of titles have.  You can view ads to double your coin earnings, but it’s entirely optional.  Really the probably I had with the game is that it was very choppy and buggy.  In fact, when I first played it, my shots seemed to go right past the enemies, so hit detection is off, too.  It’s a shame because if it weren’t for that, this would be a pretty decent little mobile Galaga game.

Kid Factor:

Violence is minimal.  You ship just explodes into pieces and enemy space bugs just burst into fireworks when shot.  Nothing worse than the original Galaga or Galaga ’88.  Parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases and optional ads.

Tags: Game Reviews