Review: Galaga Legions (XBLA)

As you may know by now (whether by talking to me or by reading my review of it), I'm a pretty big Galaga fan. When I first saw Galaga Legions being demonstrated at E3 '08, I was a bit skeptical. It instantly reminded me of Pac-Man Championship Edition, which, while it was an okay game, I didn't like it all that much (although I've never been a huge fan of Pac-Man, anyway. I like it, but it's nowhere near my favorite game). Since I'm such a big Galaga fan, all I was doing was praying that they didn't screw Legions up. Somehow, they changed a lot of the gameplay mechanics, but still made a pretty cool game, even by Galaga's standards.

Like I said, they changed a few things for Legions. The first is that you can move all around the screen, and not just left and right. Second, you have two turrets which can be placed anywhere on the screen, or you can just leave them attached to your ship for extra firepower. Third, the enemies and the way they act are way different. They can now come at you from any direction, and there are often very, very many of them. Since there are so many coming from all directions, the developers added a cool system that draws out the path of the enemies and shows you where they're coming from about a second before they do come. It's simple, helpful, and it looks really cool.

Speaking of looking cool, the graphics are a really neat-looking futuristic kind of thing. As I said before, the graphics really remind me of Pac-Man Championship Edition, so if you've seen it, just imagine a white spaceship and about a million green aliens, and you have Galaga. Another neat feature is you have three graphics style options to choose from, Original, Vintage, and Ancient. It's a little confusing, because they could all mean the same thing, but Original is the new, updated Legions graphics, and Vintage and Ancient are the 1981 sprites, but placed on the cool backgrounds and explosion effects.

The controls are much better than Galaga. You have two shooting modes to choose from, Manual and Automatic. You're only going to want to choose Manual if you're looking for a challenge, because you can have as many bullets as you want out at one time, as opposed to only being able to have two in Galaga. But, even if you do choose Manual, you can shoot with the Right Trigger, which feels a lot more natural than mashing the A button. You also use the Right Stick to place and position your turrets. I like the turrets because even though the eliminate the (need for a) double ship, they add a whole new dimension of strategy to the gameplay.

The sound has (obviously) been revamped, with techno/electronic music that, thankfully, stays in the background enough that your ears won't bleed. It also has a techno/electronic version of the little riff that I guess you consider the Galaga theme. The shooting also sounds really good, and the explosions sound pretty good.

There are a few flaws with Legions though, however small they may be. First is that there are only five areas. There are five levels in the five areas, but it's still not very many. Thankfully, the levels aren't that short, so it's not really a game that you can beat in twenty minutes. Second, sometimes there are too many enemies on the screen, and some of them may be shooting, so if you get caught up shooting aliens, you can forget to dodge bullets, resulting in some (seemingly) unfair deaths.

Overall, I really like Galaga Legions, and I think it's a worthy sequel/"enhanced remake" (it actually feels more like a sequel than an "enhanced remake", as the Wikipedia page insists) to the original Galaga, and it's way more than just pretty graphics, it's an entirely new game. 4 out of 5.

Review: Galaga (XBLA)

I was never a big fan of arcade machines. Hell, by the time I was old enough to really enjoy them, most of them were gone. Plus, I lived in a small town, so the only one I really ever played was this one in Pizza Hut, and it was a game I'd never even heard of (and unimportant enough that I don't remember the name). There were a few exceptions, though, and Galaga was one of the biggest, and remains one of my favorite games to this day. I first got interested in this type of game while watching my dad play this, and I thought it was so cool. Little did I know, the real thing was so much better, and the XBLA port/remake of the 1981 original is nearly as good.

The gameplay is the exact same as it was in the arcade. You fly around, moving your ship left and right, shooting aliens as they fly around and shoot back at you while they try and divebomb you kamikaze style. It's a basic idea, and it's done really well.

There were a few changes for the 360, however, like changing how many lives you start out with (up to 4), and changing how many points you have to get before being granted another life. The other major change is how you "Continue", if you can even call it that. Instead of having the choice to continue when you die, you're taken back to the menu, but you have the option to start from whatever stage you got to, but you start with no points. This is useful for getting some of the Achievements, but that almost makes the game feel a little too easy. Almost. One change that would have been more than welcome was a Co-op. I think that would have been pretty cool.

As I said before, the main game remains virtually unchanged, so it's got the same graphics and sounds. The controls, however, are a little different. The left thumbstick works well enough to move the ship, but mashing the "A" button to shoot is a little different. It works, but it might take some getting used to Thankfully, they added a Rapid Fire button, so you always have that option.

Galaga is a game that has stood the test of time. It was a great game over twenty-five years ago, and it still is today. It's been through several ports, and while I haven't played them all, I consider the XBLA version to be the best, and even though the graphics and sound are way outdated, it doesn't retract from the overall experience at all. 4 out of 5.

More L4D

Well, ACD and I finally beat L4D, and then played some Versus. I can't speak for him entirely, but I think we can both agree that it is easily one of the top contenders for Game of the Year.

I've been sitting here for 30 minutes, and I can't think of anything else to write.

HOLY SHIT

This game DOES kick SO. MUCH. ASS. I haven't played it much (ACD left me before we beat the first scenario D; ), but what I have played is so awesome. This is EASILY a Game of the Year contender. I haven't played past where ACD and I got, because I want to wait for him. I don't know if I can, though. I've been playing Versus mode for a while now. It is SO. MUCH. FUN.

Ok, going to play more.

T-Minus 5 Hours!

Just 5 hours until L4D!! Hopefully ACD will get online soon so we can play. This game is going to kick so much ass. That's pretty much all I have to say, so I'm just going to go play UT3 for a while.

That's Unreal, man!

I bought the Unreal Deal Pack thing on Steam today (which includes Unreal Gold, Unreal 2: The Awakening, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004, and Unreal Tournament III, all for $40. A damn good deal if you ask me.). So far I've only played Unreal Gold, but I'm getting ready to play UTIII. I got it for the PS3 from GameFly about a week ago, and I really liked it.

So far, Unreal Gold seems to be a lot like Half-Life (which makes sense, since HL was made using the Unreal Engine), so that's a plus. The textures aren't as good or anything, but that's to be expected. One thing that I find a little strange is that there's no consistency in the levels length-wise. Some levels take me five minutes, some take me forty-five. Oh, well, it seems to be a good game anyway.

I'm off to play some UTIII.

eMusic kinda sucks.

I signed up for eMusic, mainly to get the song Man, It's So Loud In Here by TMBG, but when I signed up, it gave me 25 free songs. There's a problem with that. They're mostly Indie music, so they don't have hardly anything I like. We also got pizza from Pizza Hut tonight, and it came with a code for 50 more songs. So now I have to try and find 61 (I still have 11 left over from the first 25) songs worth downloading before my 14 days are up. I may just end up downloading stuff I don't really want. I don't know.

So that's pretty much my day. I need a life. NO. L4D comes out in a few days. Having a life would just get in the way. I can't decide whether or not to play through the game in Singlplayer or in Multiplayer first. Probably Multiplayer if any of my friends are on.