If you're like me, the things you appreciate most in life are the things that were once the coolest, most
advanced forms of entertainment in the world, but are now virtually unknown. Last time on Arcade Rewind
(which I must admit was too long ago) I recounted the glorious R360 arcade machine, Sega's full motion
simulator ride from the early 90's. Around the same time period, Sega's biggest competitor in the arcade
industry, Namco, released a game that equaled the R360 in all around impracticability - Galaxian 3.
I made a bittersweet discovery recently at the Dave & Buster's arcade in Islandia, NY... Tucked in the back
corner amongst a myriad of lame ticket redemption games was a huge box shaped cabinet with two giant
entrances. My jaw dropped. "My God," I thought. "I'm standing next to a Galaxian 3, one of the holy grails
of the arcade industry." So why bittersweet you ask? The machine had been converted (that is rigged) to play
a different game than what was originally designed by Namco...
Galaxian 3 is, simply put, an interactive theatre. Two games were officially released for the machine:
"Galaxian 3 - Project Dragoon", and its sequel, "Attack of the Zolgear." Both are outer space shooter games
that follow the theme set by the original Galaxian and its follow up, the ever famous Galaga. The theater has
6 seats, all of which are equipped with a rotating gun turret for each player. The seats also vibrate during
the course of play. The screen is illuminated by two projectors located in the rear of the cabinet (much like
a movie theatre). The images displayed on screen are mostly prerendered backgrounds playing off of a laser
disc player, housed in the rear of the machine along with commercial amplifiers for the Bose sound system, and
of course, the game's series of circuit boards.
The gameplay (which is similar in both versions of the game) consists of firing at enemy ships on the screen
from a first person perspective. Your space ship is on a set course, leaving players free to fire away at the
oncoming enemies as a team. The game only has 3 stages with a boss fight at the end of each stage (Attack of
the Zolgear has alternate routes you can take at the end of each stage). In Project Dragoon, the goal is to
destroy "Cannon Seed", a doomsday weapon capable of blowing Earth into fragments "smaller than California", as
the game's prologue explains. In Attack of the Zolgear, the Dragoon spacecraft is protecting an outer colony
called "Exia" from a freakishly huge space monster. The games are not that long, taking about 10 minutes to
complete as long as you manage to keep the team's energy meter from draining.
As I mentioned, I actually found one of these machines near me, but it wasn't playing either Project Dragoon
or Attack of the Zolgear. It was playing "Air Raid", a World War II anti aircraft shooting simulator. I'm
going to give my blunt, passionate opinion here - Air Raid sucks, and it's an absolute travesty that the
original game meant to be played inside a Galaxian Theater would be removed. This particular Galaxian 3
machine still had Attack of the Zolgear artwork and instructions stickers on it, though they were being
loosely masked by military camoflage that was draped over the machine to disguise its true identity. You
can't fool an arcade geek no matter how hard you try.
My buddy Nick from arcade-hunters.com recorded a video of the EXACT machine I discovered:
This machine cost $150,000 when it was released in 1990. There was also a 28 player (!) version of the game
that was only released in Japanese amusement parks. A four player home version was released for the
Playstation as well.
There is at least one known individual crazy enough to have bought one of these monsters for their own
personal arcade collection (something I would absolutely do if I had the space). His name is Nuno and he has
documented the disassembly and purchase of the machine quite extensively on his website and forum:
http://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=231.0
Well, I've just about exhausted my resources in telling you everything I could find out about the Galaxian 3
Theater system (that's not true, it's just that some knowledge is only interesting to crazy arcade fans like
myself). I will leave you with this video of Galaxian 3 - Project Dragoon being played through and beaten by
one player:
