User:Herzog/gaplus

Gaplus Gaplus, far more commonly known as Galaga 3, is a 1984 arcade game by Namco. It was only known as Gaplus in Japan. A modifictaion kit was distributed later that changed the title screen to Galaga 3 Finding this game for home video game consoles is very difficult. It only appears on some multi-game cartridges, which were released long after its arcade release. The reason it didn't have a home conversion for so long is due to the Video Game Crash of 1983.

Gameplay
Galaga 3 is a sequel to Galaga and has similar gameplay. However, it has a much steeper leraning curve and much deeper gameplay in later levels. The player controls a spaceship, that can now move vertically, and shoots at swarms of incoming insect-like aliens which fly in formation above it and swoop down to bomb it in a kamikaze-like dive. In this sequel, the level starts over if the player is killed before all the enemies have come in. When all enemies are destroyed, the player moves on to the next level.

The game differs from its predecessor in several ways:


 * By shooting at a shooting star that occasionally appears, the player can get a ship with new graphics, that can have three shots on screen instead of two. After this, the shooting the star will make a special flag flag appear from the Namco game Rally-X that awards a bonus ship when collected.


 * There are two special types of stages besides the normal levels called parsecs. There are levels where the starfield reverses and enemies come in waves then leave. After this, a small force comes in like a normal stage. The challenging stages are very different from the original. Enemies are juggled by shots, each hit slowly spelling out Bonus, Gaplus, Double or Triple for a bonus and additional hits scoring 200 points each.. It is most effective to use the red and blue powerups to repeatedly hit them.


 * The 'boss' galaga on diffent stages drops several types of powerups when destroyed. The red powerup captures enemies with a tractor beam where each one provides another shot. The blue powerup gives wider and faster shots. The green powerup captures enemies in a tractor beam and can then be shot for bonus points. The purple powerup changes the screen to a vertical orientation. It may also carry a third of a ship that will be kept track of at the lower-right of the screen between games. A bonus ship is awarded when all three are collected.

Gaplus can be played by a single player or by two players alternating turns. The starting number of lives is set to three by default, and an extra life is awarded at different scores, but these settings can be changed via DIP switches on the game's motherboard.