Go Galaxian

My first job was with the Manila Bulletin’s Advertising Department. That was in mid 1981 up to around 1987. It was a long stretch working for the “Nation’s Leading Newspaper.”

During that stretch, I was assigned at the Manila Peninsula Branch Office, located at the Ayala Avenue side of the hotel. Rizal Theatre was directly across the hotel. Now, it is Makati Shangrila.

There were only three branches then. Cubao. Caloocan. Makati. Now, I count around ten branches, even up to Davao. Cost of classified ads was Php 7.50 per line. And php 45 pesos per col. cm.

I remember my friend Lito Pozas, a Journalism graduate from UST who worked for a pharmaceutical company (I think?). After office hours, we would meet at Greenbelt and spend time (and hard earned money) playing Galaxian. Yes, we were both addicted to this arcade game!



Developed by Namco and published by Midway Games in 1979, Galaxian, similar to Space Invaders, is a first person shooter arcade game to use RGB color. It was Lito versus me during those days.

The game was simple. Shoot down as many aliens as possible (like Space Invaders). But here, there would be “kamikaze” like aliens who took dives at your ship, which moved horizontally at the bottom of the screen. Sorry, no up and down movement then.

Swarm after swarm of alien armies would attack the player. Each swarm became more aggressive than the previous swarm.

We would usually spend around 200 pesos. That would last us for around one hour, or even more, of we got a lot of bonus ships.

Galaxian was so successful that it led to other similar games with the same formula. Soon, players became tired of shooting down aliens.

Fast forward to the mid-90s. Everyone at CITEM also became game addicts. I remember Arnold Bailing quickly hiding the game screen when a boss would come up from behind to follow-up a creative requirement.

Go Galaxian!