Galaga
Contributors: Roger Bonine / Rajeev Gantela / Robert Sandstrom
There is a well-known cheat that causes enemy units to stop firing.
It works on most (but not all) machines. Here it is:
On the first stage, kill everything but the two bees in the bottom
left corner. Then just wait, dodging the bees' shots, until the
bee no longer drops any shots towards you. After the bees stop
firing, let it pass for 5 more trips or so and then kill them. For
the rest of the game, the enemies will not drop shots. It will
take approximately 15 minutes for the bees to quit shooting at
you, so this trick requires a lot of patience.
Some people have reported that this trick also works with two bees
from the RIGHT side of the screen...
Note that, in a 2-player game, only one person has to do the cheat
for both players to benefit.
If you're playing Galaga in MAME, this trick can be sped up by
turning off speed throttling. On a fast machine, the time can
reportedly be cut from 15 minutes down to 2 or 3!
The "Player 1" score counter in Galaga is 6 digits, but the "Player
2" counter is seven digits. Therefore, most good players start a
2-player game and play exclusively on the Player 2 side so their
score won't "roll over" at 999,990.
Challenging stages are easier if the high score numbers are used to
refine your aim. These tips assume a 6-digit high score:
On the first 2 challenging stages, aim your ships so that your
left set of bullets falls between the second and third numbers in
the high score list.
On subsequent challenging stages, aim one set of your bullets
between the first and second numbers in the high score list (if
the units come from the left) or between the last and next-to-last
numbers (if the units come from the right). This will allow you to
hit descending enemies at the highest possible point.
Here is a neat (and useless) Galaga trick: It is possible to end the
game with a 200% ratio. The 200% hit-miss ratio trick can only be
done with your first shot of the game. When the game starts, don't
move, and fire only one shot. If you time it correctly, two
enemies will be killed at once. Let your remaining ships be
destroyed, and presto: a better-than-perfect result.
If you have more than 7 extra men, the marker for the screen will
only show 7 1/2 (!) men remaining. Additional extra men will still
be credited, even though they won't show on the screen.
Galaga "rolls over" after stage 255. After finishing the 255th
level, the screen says "Stage 0" and the machine locks up. I have
heard unconfirmed reports in the past that the "Stage 0" problem
can be circumvented if the last two numbers in your score at the
end of level 255 are (?? 80 is what I remember, but it may be
something else).
If anyone has any further information about this, I would
appreciate hearing it...
After the 1,000,000 mark, new ships are no longer awarded.
