Galactopus - Atari 2600

Galactopus

Haverchuck was in the middle of another graveyard shift in the sub-sub-sub-sub-basement of the Alien Trespass Advance Reconnaissance Initiative monitoring the the long-range solar sonar when he heard the klaxon from the Thermo-Kwik™ alerting him that his baked potato was ready. He leapt to his feet not noticing his slightly defective self-tying bootlace had wrapped itself around his chair leg. He fell hard, hitting his head on the edge of the instrument panel and blacking out. At that moment a dim red light below the solar sonar illuminated, signaling the arrival of an alien intruder.

Now it's up to you to take control of the PX-77 low-orbit fighter and confront the most feared cephalopod of the cosmos, the Galactopus! Grab your favorite Atari compatible joystick and get ready for action! Use the joystick to move your ship left and right across the bottom of the screen. Press the action button to fire a laser blast up the screen at Galactopus. Initially your laser isn't powerful enough to kill Galactopus, only chip away pieces of the octonium armor. Collect the pieces to power up your blaster. Once you collect 8, you'll be able to blow Galactopus out of the sky!

Galactopus Hunting

To paraphrase the ancient philosopher Yakov Smirnoff, "In ocean, you hunt octopus. In space, octopus hunts you." the galactopus is an alpha predator with no natural enemies and, to be frank, not a lot of unnatural enemies either.

The prototype PX-77 low-orbit fighter is humanity's latest best h ope against the galactopus. Constructed from a new ultra light-weight yttyxkium alloy, engineers are cautiously optimistic that it can survive the trip to the upper atmosphere.

The PX-77 is armed with an ion displacement cannon powered by an on-board octonium react or. Adding octonium to the reactor increases the output of the cannon. At full strength, it is theoretically powerful enough to fell a cacaltopus.

One major drawback in the current cannon design is the potential for overheating. After each shot, the firing mechanism goes into a lockdown state that lasts roughly the amount of time it takes for the shot to disappear from view in order to allow the system adequate time to cool down.

Only time and the heroic sacrifices of test pilots will tell if the PX-77 will fare any better than previous anti-galactopus efforts. In the meantime, be sure to always wear your collapsable reflective headgear when outdoors, just in case that actually helps.

Additional Information

Galactopus includes game cartridge and eight-page, full-color manual. Galactopus is available in NTSC and PAL60 television formats, please select above when ordering.