When Galaxian went handheld and two-player
October 11, 2020They were called games for the discriminating player, and in many ways, these late ’70s and early ’80s handhelds lived up to that self high-praise.
Compton toy company Entex Industries entered the game industry in the late 70s, first with a line of LED handheld games and then stepped things up with a line of vacuum fluorescent display systems that recreated arcade experiences in vibrant, handheld form.
Among the popular Entex breakouts were Grand Prix, Blast II, Defender, Pac-Man, and Galaxian.
I was fortunate enough to land a Galaxian 2 in 1981 just in time for a trip back to the States from my then-home in Seoul, South Korea. While it is a single-game system, those electric blue phosphorous images managed to keep me occupied for what seemed like an unending series of flights.
Galaxian 2 adds a fun multiplayer element to the Midway space invader classic. Players have the option of playing a fairly decent replica of the original in one of two difficulty levels or playing against a friend, who takes control of the dive-bombing space insects.
The system is actually played vertically, with the defender using the right and left buttons to move their ship and smashing the red fire button to try and take out enemies.
Across the screen, the opposing player can take control of the enemies using four directional buttons and a single fire button.
While a bit chunky, the system more than makes up for its girth with a wonderful, futuristic design that makes the handheld itself look like something found floating in space.
While this is the only Entex I own, the company has quite a few excellent releases. Most interesting to the collector is likely the Adventure Vision, a tiny cartridge-based tabletop system. The other Entex multi-cart is actually a handheld called the Select-A-Game, a much easier — but still not cheap — system to get your hands on.
