I am a fan of classic and retro titles.  After all, I was born at the dawn of coin-op arcades and videogame consoles, and grew up playing most of them.  So I am always excited to play a mobile adaptation of a classic; the simplicity of a retro title lends itself well to the platform.

I have talked about it before, but my favorite retro classic is most likely Space Invaders.  This week’s Mobile Monday Review is not Space Invaders, but a similar title: Galaga.

For those that don’t know or remember, Galaga is the top down alien shooting sequel to Galaxian.  In each level, enemy ships fly in from off screen at the top, and line up in stationary Space Invader-like formation, dropping bombs on the .  The player moves side-to-side across the bottom of the screen, trying to shoot the aliens.  Once all aliens of a level have “formed up”, one by one they will begin to dive bomb the player’s ship.  Watch out for low flying tractor-beam ships; they are out to capture yours, but free it, and you will have a twice the firepower.

Namco’s mobile version is a faithful recreation, with a few issues.  The graphics are spot on: an identical, albeit, an obviously smaller recreation of the original.  The controls are tolerable, although they suffer from the problems of other Namco mobile classics.  Traditionally controlled with a joystick, the left-right movement is a little sloppy, the same problem I experienced playing Mr. Do.

The audio of Galaga is pretty good, and even includes the opening theme song.  Everything sounds okay, but it does come across as a little “tinny”, but that really has more to do with hardware and not the game itself.  The big problem with the sound is the stuff that is missing.  Sounds of the player’s ship firing and alien explosions are both strangely absent.  This may seem minor, but it’s an obviously missing element of the original.  Considering how good the rest of the game is, it makes me sad Namco skipped such an easily recreated detail.

Despite its shortcomings, Namco’s mobile version of Galaga is a great title, and a great way to pass the time while on the go.  I recommend at least trying the title.  If you like classics, I think you’ll love it.

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