Galaxian (ギャラクシアン Gyarakushian) is an arcade game that was developed by Namco and released in October 1979. It was published by Namco in Japan and imported to North America by Midway that December. A fixed shooter game in which the player controls a spaceship at the bottom of the screen, and shoots enemies descending in various directions, it was designed to compete with Taito Corporation's successful earlier game Space Invaders (which was released in the previous year, and also imported to the US by Midway Games).
The game was highly popular for Namco upon its release, and has been a focus of competitive gaming ever since. It spawned a successful sequel, Galaga, in 1981, and the lesser known Gaplus and Galaga '88 in 1984 and 1987 respectively, as well as many later ports and adaptations. Along with its immediate sequel, it was one of the most popular games during the golden age of arcade video games.
Galaxian expanded on the formula pioneered by Space Invaders. As in the earlier game, Galaxian features a horde of attacking aliens that exchanged shots with the player. In contrast to Space Invaders, Galaxian added an element of drama by having the aliens periodically make kamikaze-like dives at the player's ship, the Galaxip. This made it the first game to feature enemies with individual personalities. The game's plot consists of a title screen that displayed the message "WE ARE THE GALAXIANS / MISSION: DESTROY ALIENS".
Galaxian 3 (also known as Galaxian³: Project Dragoon) is an arcade game released by Namco in 1990 and its immediate sequel as a scaled-down arcade cabinet in 1994. It is a walk-in style arcade game run upon a hybrid of laserdisc, and traditional arcade hardware. It uses multiple Namco System 21 boards with synchronized laserdisc players (up to sixteen boards and players in the original Galaxian³, and two in the Project Dragoon) to create the pre-rendered backgrounds of the game. Each player shares the same life meter and takes the role of one of many stationary gunner positions (up to sixteen/twenty-eight players for Galaxian³, and six for Project Dragoon), who are defending a spaceship against an onslaught of enemy ships. It was one of only two games that were released for Namco's "Theater 6" arcade system, the other being its immediate sequel, Attack of the Zolgear, which was released in 1994. This title was also Namco's first arcade game of the 1990s.
The arcade cost $150,000 (USD). Its dimensions are W: 16'7", D:16'4", H:8' and has dual 120" inch screens giving a single super wide display and high quality Bose audio (it used a Yamaha YM2151 running at 3.57958 MHz for music with a C140 at 21.39 kHz for effects).
Galaxian is the fifth album by Keyboardist Jeff Lorber as leader of his band "The Jeff Lorber Fusion". Released in 1981, this was Lorber's last album as leader of his band "The Jeff Lorber Fusion" until 2010's Now Is The Time.