Author Doug McCoy

There must be a lot of people out there looking into retro arcade space fighters, because “Galaga ship” is the number one search that brings folks to authordougmccoy.com. That being the case, I wanted to add a couple better pics of the Galaga ship and a few others. I hope these are better, anyway. In either case, I grabbed them myself and tried to resize them without losing two much quality.

First is the Space Invaders laser base (yeah, it’s a laser base, not a ship). Again, I grabbed this one myself. For some reason, it is solid. The horizontal lines that a visible in the other pic I posted aren’t visible in this one. I don’t know why.

Next is the Galaxian ship. Again, not my favorite. It still looks more like a freighter than a fighter to me.

And finally is the Galaga ship. I still contend that this is the best looking space fighter in the arcade. It is even better looking than a lot I’ve seen on film.

So those are the best pics of these ships I can get. If anybody finds any better ones, let me know!

I always get all my video game playing tips from the editors of Consumer Guide. That’s why I was so excited to get their book called How To Win At Donkey Kong, another video game pdf I recently found.

This short book (really more like a pamphlet) gives us an introduction to the characters, patterns for each board, ideas for finesse, and ways you can grandstand. I found it pretty helpful mostly because of the patterns. There were some other things in it, though, that were interesting. It covered the pattern of the “Springese” on the elevator board. I had never heard of that until Steve Wiebe mentioned in in King of Kong. It also mentioned that Mario can be killed while using the hammer, something I talked about in Arcadian.

There were some oddities about the book as well. It listed several alternate names for Donkey Kong, such as “King Kong” and “Chimp Face”. I wasn’t sure where those names came from. It also said the blue things on the girder board are “beams”. I always thought they were just blue barrels.

Those oddities aside, this book was a fun read (yet another example of my “portable nostalgia”), particularly because the authors seemed to have the same goal I had: getting to the next board. The book seems to be geared not towards score but to advancement, which is always what I played for. Maybe with the patterns this book gives, I finally can get to the cement factory!

In addition to all the great ebooks I got with my Christmas money (and that I’m still working through), I also found some old video game book pdfs. Among them was this title: How To Beat Video Games by Michael Blanchet.

This is one that I may or may not have had as a kid. I know I had a similar book to this one, and I know it covered Qik, but that’s all I have in my memory banks to go on, so I’m not sure if this is the same one or not. It starts with some general tips about arcade gaming that I would have taken seriously as a kid (check the joystick action, ground yourself from static electricity, etc) but just blow off now. And it gives general tips on how to play all the games listed on the title. It even has some diagrams of boards and moves.

Books like this aren’t that helpful to me today. Since I don’t play for a high score (and never did, as I explained in Arcadian), I don’t pay attention to scoring strategies. But the real value of the book isn’t in the tips or strategies. The real value is in the nostalgia, or, since I have it on my Kindle Fire, the “portable nostalgia”, the ability to give me just a quick taste of some of the good things of my childhood. This book serves that purpose just fine.