Timeline | 1983: Galaxian for Atari 2600

Galaxian came late to the Atari 2600

The Space Invaders craze was still in full swing when Namco released Galaxian to the arcades in 1979 (1980 in the US). Galaxian expanded upon the concept of waves of alien crafts, but in this case the player piloted a ship in space with slightly more freedom of movement and the enemies could move a lot more as well - attacking in patterns, breaking off from the group and trying to collide with the player, and all the while shooting at you and moving side-to-side - Galaxian was pretty high paced action for the time.

A screenshot of the Galaxian Arcade game

I'm not sure why Atari didn't get around to porting Galaxian to the Atari 2600 until 1983, perhaps they had passed it up earlier and where now grasping at straws to respark the popularity of the 2600? (that is pure conjecture but it does fit with the times). By late 1983 the Atari 2600 had tanked in popularity, the US video game business had shrunk something like 90% and companies were going out of business.

Galaxian on the Atari 2600

The port of Galaxian for the Atari 2600 is so-so, not nearly as bad as Donkey Kong or Pac-Man but still not very good. Fortunately the gameplay is good enough to make up for the lack of polish in this port and the game itself is still enjoyable - if this was the last game you picked up for your Atari 2600 you could have done a lot worse (and many did... I'm looking at you E.T.)

Further Reading:

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxian