Galaxy 5000
System: NES
Release Date: February 1991
Developer: Activision
Publisher: Activision
Genre: Racing
It’s the 51st century and racing has never been so much fun in Galaxy 5000! As the driver of an armored turbocraft, you’re there to out speed, outmaneuver, and out shoot the competition. Can you succeed in four races on each of the nine planets? They must have given Pluto’s planet status back sometime in the 33rd century, or something.
The first choice you have in front of you is which control scheme you want to use. The Alpha control scheme has you pressing the direction you want your car to move. This is easy to learn, but makes shooting your weapons a bit more finicky. The Beta controls has you pressing up to accelerate, down to decelerate, and steering with left and right. You can and will jump with the A Button, while the B Button activates your ship’s weapon. You can shoot forward and backward. While I had trouble shooting backward with the Alpha controls, I was a menace with the Beta controls.
You start on the planet Mercury and have four races to get through. The first race is the simplest and where you should be learning the layout of the track. Each subsequent race on the planet is the same track, but the obstacles change. These really try to trip you up, especially when boosters point in the wrong direction. Mines are huge damage dealers and should be avoided At all costs. Later planets even mess with the gravity, making your jumps less effective. I’m looking at you Jupiter. There’s also a time limit that when you reach causes the track to disappear!
The goal of each race is to finish first to earn the most prize money, but you can earn more with your actions on the track. Levels have obstacles that either merely get in your way, or try to damage you. Destroying these will add to your cash after the race. If you can blow up a rival racer, you can get a big windfall of money. There are also bonus stars scattered on the track and under obstacles. The green one gives you a cash bonus. The blue star upgrades your weapon to a more powerful version. The red star repairs some of the damage you’ve taken.
After each race, you can spend some of that money to repair the damage you’ve taken, but the main goal is to amass enough cash to upgrade your vehicle. Take damage and you start to blink. If you take too much damage, your craft explodes and, if you have one, you hop into an obsolete cruiser to finish the race. Lose all of your vehicles and it’s game over, but you earn a continue for every new planet you reach, so you have plenty of chances to get it right.
Graphics: 3.0
The isometric view lends itself to some pretty nifty graphical approaches to things.
Sound: 2.5
The music is subdued, but there are a lot of sound effects including some voice samples.
Gameplay: 3.0
Pick whichever control scheme you prefer. There’s a lot to keep your mind on as you race across the solar system.
Difficulty: 2.5
Learning the layout of the track is important in the first race so you can be open to the variants of the later ones.
Fun Factor: 3.5
I don’t know of much better racing games on the NES.
Overall Rating: 2.9
Galaxy 5000 earns a B. This is a title I wish I would have known about and picked up as a kid, it’s right up my alley and sets the stage for Rock and Roll Racing 2 and a half years from now.