Galaxian Geneology

Even though Galaxian started the series, Galaga became so popular that most of the later sequels have more to do with Galaga than Galaxian.

1979 - Galaxian - Defend your space ship against waves of alien attack in this arcade game, the first in real color.

1981 - Galaga - New aliens, new attacks and new strategies, not to mention very addictive gameplay, ensured Galaga would become a massive hit even without the connection to Galaxian.

1984 - Gaplus - This arcade game added even more to the mix, including full two-dimensional movement of the player's ship, not just left and right. Gaplus also saw release as Galaga 3, a strange name coming from the fact it's the third game in a series where the second game was exponentially more popular than the first.

1988 - Galaga '88 - The series finally saw a genuine update of the graphics in this third arcade sequel, where detailed backgrounds and 3D-esque aliens appear in addition to the expected changes in gameplay. Galaga '88 was ported to the TurboGrafx 16 two years later, and the Sega Game Gear the year after that. These ports received different names in different parts of the world, with predictable alternatives like Galaga '90 and Galaga '91.

1994 - Galaxian 3: Project Dragoon - This massively ambitious and confusingly named arcade "experience" combined traditional graphics with laserdisc-provided backgrounds, similar to M.A.C.H. 3. Linked hardware allowed up to 6 gamers to play at once. A direct sequel using the same hardware followed, named Attack of the Zolgear. The game was then offered in an understandably slimmer home version for the Sony PlayStation.

1995 - Galaga Arrangement - In celebration of their pioneering video game titles, Namco went back and "remixed" six of their more popular games, spicing them up with new graphics, new sound effects and music, and new elements of gameplay.