Galaga Now on Roku2. My Retro Button Be Pushed!
I was watching an episode of “Sons of Guns” when my Roku abruptly rebooted. Usually that means an update happened. Upon reboot I went into the Channel store to see what new applications might have been added. That is when I saw the game I played upon growing up. Galaga.
I was excited. I snapped up this $4.99 application instantly.
Galaga was first published in 1981 by Namco (now NAMCO Bandai). You are in a spaceship and your task is to destroy the alien ships before they destroy you. You can get captured by one of the alien ships, then gain the ship back by destroying though your next life. When you do so, you link the two ships up to double your firepower.
Galaga on Roku
First,a quick note. You need the enhanced remote to play this game. This comes on the $99 Roku XS model only.
Upon playing the game, the first problem is the resolution of the TV. The game, on a 4:3 screen, would fill nicely. However, this version of the game has a resolution of what looks like 800×1080. They fill up the rest of the screen with a nice background image, but you might want to still get up a little closer to watch and play.
The play on Galaga is a little choppy. The alien ships feel like their speeding up, then slowing down. The challenge stage, you really notice a difference. The ships are going at a slower speed.
The other issue is the little ships I call “Bumble bees”. In the later levels, one of those ships transform to 3 alien ships. When this happens, each ship shoots at you, but the shots seem to go a bit faster.
I feel these are small fixes that will hopefully be cleaned up soon. I don’t feel it’s a problem with framerate, as it didn’t feel choppy. I expect a couple updates and the framerate will get fixed. It’s still a great waste of time for those that just need to play a game. With this out, I cannot wait to see some other games show up (Pac Man is expected soon).