Review: Galactix
Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 6:10 am
After the disappointment of Space Commanders II I decided to revisit one of my favorite retro vertical shmups of all time: Galactix.
Galactix is a typical space shoot 'em up. The ship you control is at the bottom of the screen and the alien craft you'll be shooting at will be at the top.
Your ship is controlled with your computer's mouse. Left and right move your ship accordingly. The left button fires your primary weapon. The right button launches missiles. The third button launches a robotic arm which is used to grab and reel in bonus items (additional missiles, bombs, energy blocks, and additional weapons). These are represented by letters: "M" for missiles, "B" for bombs, etc. Letters appear after some ships are destroyed, and they are constantly floating up, away, and eventually off the screen. You'll have to hurry to catch them.
Galactix contains 100 levels that run in waves of five. On level one you'll face aliens who fire slow bombs. On level two you'll face a second wave of aliens that fire faster lasers. Level three contains enemies that fire even faster heat-seeking bullets. Level four contains a few of each of these enemies. Level five also contains a few of each of these enemies, along with a boss ship. When a boss ship is destroyed, an additional letter ("S") will appear. If you can grab the "S", your ship will be upgraded. There are three upgrades in all -- a faster laser gun, followed by two additional laser guns, followed by even more laser guns. With no upgrades at all it'll take ten or so hits with your measly bullets to destroy an alien. Fully upgraded, your onslaught of laser rain will destroy an entire wave of ships in seconds. Take too much damage though and your upgrades will disappear, leaving you to fend for yourself with wimpy shots until you can destroy another boss ship and restart the upgrading process.
50 levels into the game you'll reach an intermission where all of your bombs and missiles will be removed. The next 50 levels are similar but with more (and more heavily armored) aliens. The five-cycle levels continue here, although no new upgrades are available.
On level 100 after defeating the final boss you'll fly to Earth and attend an awards ceremony. Not the most earth shattering ending to a game I've ever seen, but it's there. Reaching the end is not difficult as the game offers infinite continues, although you'll always restart with no weapon upgrades.
Galactix is particular about the speed of your computer. I remember being much better at this game than my friends were, only to discover that it ran much more slowly on my 386 than their 486's. I played through and beat this game last night using DosBox and I can tell you that on my laptop through DosBox, the game runs more slowly that it appears in this video. There are multiple versions of Galactix available across the web and I read that there may be a Windows native version, so I may try and track it down.
When I read that the new PS4 and Xbox 720 may only be available on dual-layer 50 gig blu-rays, it reminds me how much fun some of these old games were. Galactix 1.3 will fit on a single floppy disk. Twice.
[youtube][/youtube]
Galactix is a typical space shoot 'em up. The ship you control is at the bottom of the screen and the alien craft you'll be shooting at will be at the top.
Your ship is controlled with your computer's mouse. Left and right move your ship accordingly. The left button fires your primary weapon. The right button launches missiles. The third button launches a robotic arm which is used to grab and reel in bonus items (additional missiles, bombs, energy blocks, and additional weapons). These are represented by letters: "M" for missiles, "B" for bombs, etc. Letters appear after some ships are destroyed, and they are constantly floating up, away, and eventually off the screen. You'll have to hurry to catch them.
Galactix contains 100 levels that run in waves of five. On level one you'll face aliens who fire slow bombs. On level two you'll face a second wave of aliens that fire faster lasers. Level three contains enemies that fire even faster heat-seeking bullets. Level four contains a few of each of these enemies. Level five also contains a few of each of these enemies, along with a boss ship. When a boss ship is destroyed, an additional letter ("S") will appear. If you can grab the "S", your ship will be upgraded. There are three upgrades in all -- a faster laser gun, followed by two additional laser guns, followed by even more laser guns. With no upgrades at all it'll take ten or so hits with your measly bullets to destroy an alien. Fully upgraded, your onslaught of laser rain will destroy an entire wave of ships in seconds. Take too much damage though and your upgrades will disappear, leaving you to fend for yourself with wimpy shots until you can destroy another boss ship and restart the upgrading process.
50 levels into the game you'll reach an intermission where all of your bombs and missiles will be removed. The next 50 levels are similar but with more (and more heavily armored) aliens. The five-cycle levels continue here, although no new upgrades are available.
On level 100 after defeating the final boss you'll fly to Earth and attend an awards ceremony. Not the most earth shattering ending to a game I've ever seen, but it's there. Reaching the end is not difficult as the game offers infinite continues, although you'll always restart with no weapon upgrades.
Galactix is particular about the speed of your computer. I remember being much better at this game than my friends were, only to discover that it ran much more slowly on my 386 than their 486's. I played through and beat this game last night using DosBox and I can tell you that on my laptop through DosBox, the game runs more slowly that it appears in this video. There are multiple versions of Galactix available across the web and I read that there may be a Windows native version, so I may try and track it down.
When I read that the new PS4 and Xbox 720 may only be available on dual-layer 50 gig blu-rays, it reminds me how much fun some of these old games were. Galactix 1.3 will fit on a single floppy disk. Twice.
[youtube][/youtube]