Gaplus

Gaplus is the sequel to Galaga that Namco put into arcades in 1984, sold in America under the name Galaga 3 as well. What you have here is the Commodore 64 conversion, which arrived several years afterwards and shows it: the palette is muted and the presentation thinner than the coin-op, though the substance of the game survived the move.

That substance is the way Gaplus turns Galaga's most famous idea inside out. In the original, enemies could steal your fighter with a tractor beam and you had to shoot it free to gain double fire. Here the beam belongs to you: collect the right power-up, fire it, and captured enemies line up alongside your ship and fight on your behalf. It changes the feel completely, from defence into hunting.

The second big change is movement. Your ship no longer clings to the bottom of the screen but travels up and down as well, so you can actively dodge incoming waves, and the swarming looks far livelier than the rigid formation attacks of its predecessor. On top of that the game scatters upgrades among falling stars you shoot down: a drill that punches through several enemies at once, a slowdown, a device that cancels enemy fire, spare parts worth extra lives, and bonus flags Namco borrowed straight from Rally-X.

The bonus rounds are no longer about clearing a scripted wave, as in Galaga, but about juggling: you keep enemies airborne with repeated hits and the longer you manage it the bigger the payout. Taken as a whole, Gaplus is faster, wilder and harder to read than the game it follows, and that is exactly why players split into two camps. If you valued Galaga's austere order, you will miss the calm. If you wanted more action and more tools, you get both.

On oldgame.cz Gaplus runs directly in your browser, with no installation.