Galaxian3

GALAXIAN^3
Shooting
NAMCO
Sony Playstation
SLPS 00270
¥5800
26 April 1996
Rating: 2 1/2

by Mark L. Johnson

GALAXIAN^3 appeared a few years back in special arcade locations to astound audiences. On two wall-sized screens, up to four people manned gun stations and protected a space ship on a fast ride through battle fleets and fortresses in a mission to save the Earth from destruction by an alien menace. Now this game has been brought home to the Playstation, but is the arcade feel enough to satisfy today's gamers?

There are two missions on this disk: Project Dragoon, the first mission with older flat style polygons, and The Rising of Gourb, a sequel with more impressive CG (The newer third mission is not included).

Each mission is a full motion video on rails, with up to four players (assuming the console has a multi-controller adapter) acting as the gunners. The scenery and major enemies are pre-done, while all the millions of small polygon ships and "targets" are generated by the Playstation. This comes out much better than older games which used this technique (like SILPHEED), though. For instance, if you destroy all the gunports on a major ship for instance, the video will change paths, and show an appropriate cool explosion.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed in GALAXIAN^3. It is impossible to shoot everything due to the sheer number of targets, and whoever is actually piloting the ship definately has never heard of the brake. Each mission however only lasts about five minutes (if the ship survives that long).

The computer graphics are well done, with only Project Dragoon showing its age a bit (and one can even see the screen break line in the middle as they must have transfered the video from the original two separate screens). It makes for a great movie-like experience.

Galaxian^3 offers plenty of pyrotechnics to please the jaded fan.

Namco tried to add many extra features, such as the ability to use most controllers available currently for the Playstation (you can even use a mouse), and the addition of a computer player option. Players can configure the power of their guns (wide, power, rapid, normal), change the difficulty level, record and save a mission run, and save high scores onto a memory card.

The computer gunner adds a replay value to the game, as you compete for who can score more points. If the player beats a computer player, they can select an even better virtual player (so by beating Frank, you can use Reiko and so on).

Is it enough though? With both missions only lasting five minutes each, and with victory almost guaranteed if there are two or more players, most players should easily see all there is to see. The computer competition features add to the lifetime, but the missions do get old fast for lone players. The only real replay ability is getting a large group of people together all racing for the best score (like the Bomberman experience).

So in summary, this is a perfect port of two missions from the arcade game. However, because arcade games are designed for getting people in and out in fast order, replayability is the biggest weakness of this game. GALAXIAN^3 is an impressive thrill ride and Namco did an admirable job keeping the arcade feel, but for the price of admission they should have done more.