Today federal opposition leader Bill Shorten and likely next Prime Minister of this country know the difference between Space Invaders and Galaga and that kind of annoys me.
Quick back story, yesterday during the Sky News/Courier-Mail leadership debate, Scott Morrison was accused by Bill Shorten of being a space invader when getting a little too close during a question.
Shorten decided to follow up today with a Tweet, continuing that joke about ‘Space invaders’. The only problem is, while the arcade machine has Space Invaders clearly labelled, it also has a number of other titles, including the game he was actually playing in the video, which was Galaga, not Space Invaders.
As someone who first got into video games on the original NES with a 31-in-1 gaming cartridge (kids look it up), Galaga was one of my favourites. Those who frequent fish and chip shops in the 90s are probably equally familiar with it.
Overall it’s disappointing a future leader of our country doesn’t know the difference, but I can’t say its surprising. Galaga was trending on Twitter this afternoon as a result of Shorten’s miss-informed post which is still live by the way.
In no way does this impact someone’s ability to run the country, but it does lack an attention to detail that really should be expected when playing for the top job.
It screams of a stunt inspired by an overzealous social media adviser, seeing the sticker (ignoring the Galaga, Pacman and others) and thinking they’ve struck ‘viral’ gold. It’d be far better if our politicians were actually authentic, rather than trying to appear like it online.
If you’d like to relive some nostalgic games from the 80s, then check out the following links to play the 2 games in question and Bill, looks like you could really use the opportunity to brush up on your skills, you’re getting killed in the video.
Space Invaders
Space Invaders is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and features two-dimensional graphics. The aim is to defeat waves of aliens with a laser cannon and earn as many points as possible.
Galaga
Galaga is a fixed shooter arcade game developed and published by Namco in Japan and published by Midway in North America in 1981. It is the sequel to Galaxian, released in 1979. The gameplay of Galaga puts the player in control of a space ship which is situated on the bottom of the screen. At the beginning of each stage, the area is empty, but over time, enemy aliens fly in formation, and once all of the enemies arrive on screen, they will come down at the player’s ship in formations of one or more and may either shoot it or collide with it. During the entire stage, the player may fire upon the enemies, and once all enemies are vanquished, the player moves onto the next stage.
