Namco's 1979 space shooter Galaxian is a classic of the arcades and has been ported to so many consoles over the years that it's a little hard to keep track of them all.
Recently, though, as spotted by IndieRetroNews, it appears that an indie developer named Happy Cactus Games has taken it upon itself to develop a new, modern homage to the game called A Blast From The Past on Steam. And from the looks of it, it's well worth checking out for yourself!
The game boasts 4K and 360Hz+ support and, similar to Galaxian, has you enter the cockpit of a spaceship and become Earth's last line of defense against endless waves of invading aliens. It was released last month on March 15th, 2023, but seems to have gone under the radar a little, amassing only 5 user reviews in all that time. Despite that, it seems to be a great update to the beloved shooter, with tons of modern conveniences.
Here's a list of some of the swanky new features taken from Steam:
- Casual, Pro and Tournament Game modes - Fun for the whole Family!
- Endless Levels - Battle for the Hi-Score!
- Hi-Refresh and HD monitor support for ultra smooth & responsive gameplay!
- Perfect for the Steam Deck with a tiny storage requirement of less than 100mb
- Play Anywhere! Steam Deck, Big TV, Computer Monitor, Valve Index VR Theatre Mode!
- Awesome Audio
- World Wide Leaderboards
- Mini-Boss Encounters!
- Optional 3D Perspective Camera Mode
- And Power-Ups
Something else worth mentioning is, in addition to all of the above, it also includes a WIP demo of a Mega Drive version of the game hidden inside the Steam files. This is apparently being updated fairly regularly and you can see some screenshots from this version of the game below:
A Blast From The Past currently costs just £4.99 on Steam. There is also a demo currently available if you want to try it out before you buy it. You can watch the trailer below: