Galaxian

The Good
Most of the Atarisoft conversions of then-classic arcade games were flawless, and Galaxian is no exception. The lazy arc of the enemies as they dive to fire at you is identical to the arcade.

The Bad
CGA's color palette limits the game to four colors, so the game is not as colorful as its arcade parent.

Galaxian does absolutely no speed checking, so you need to slow down your PC (or find an original 4.77MHz 8088) to play it.

The Bottom Line
Like Galaxian? Got an old PC? You know what to do.

The Good
It's very good port of Arcade Galaxian. Graphics is ok, sound is also surprisingly good (no annoying beeps from speaker, but rather short bursts), but of course, what's standing out is gameplay. It's quite addictive, perfect for casual gaming and compared to other arcade titles from the same era, game let's you play nice long sessions. To explain: "survival" rate in some other arcades from that era was like few seconds without joystick (Robotron, Defender) and something more with joystick. In contrast, Galaxian is much more player-friendly, thus it's not so harsh even when compared to today's more relaxed difficulty standards. Setup your DOSBox on your home theater computer connected to TV, connect controller and you're ready for perfect family fun. But of course, don't forget to slow down your DOS emulator (400-500 cycles were ok for me).

The Bad
Again, no high score table saving, what's worse there's no high score table at all. There's just one number (highest score in actual session).

The Bottom Line
Perfect arcade fun, which stood test of time.

The Good
Not a real standout, Galaxian is a really solid game with nothing really special. It has adequate (CGA...) graphics, adequate gameplay...

The Bad
... and adequately horrible sound effects.

The Bottom Line
Well, if you liked Space Invaders, you'll like this one - it's not much different.