How to play Galaga: Destination Earth on Mac

Game summary

Galaga, the "slide-and-shoot" arcade classic from 1981, has been updated with nine new worlds, 3D graphics, futuristic backgrounds and more in GALAGA -- Destination: Earth. It is late in the 22nd century, and the insect-like Galaga are back. Humans have terraformed and colonized most habitable places in our solar system, but the Galaga have only one thing in mind: destruction. The Galaga are mutated nanites that were inadvertently created during the terraforming process. They are deadly, autonomous and great in number, and you must blast them into oblivion. In addition to shooting Galaga, you must perform various mission objectives, such as collecting life pods and activating water turbines. Like in the original game, you begin this enhanced version of Galaga controlling a ship that moves horizontally along the bottom of the playfield and fires upward at wave after wave of diving, swirling aliens that eventually fly into formation. However, unlike the original, this game, depending on what mission you are playing, features a number of other viewpoints, including over the shoulder, top down and side on. You can fire just two shots at a time, but you can gain the ability to have three shots onscreen at once. Also like the original game, GALAGA -- Destination: Earth features challenge waves in which you blast streams of enemies for points while not having to worry about your own safety. And, of course, you can let a Galaga capture your ship, then shoot your ship's captor, letting the captured ship fall to you, enabling you to double your firepower. Similar to Gaplus, the sequel to classic Galaga, this game also lets you collect beam power-ups that enable you to capture enemies, place them by your side and use their weapons.

Play Galaga: Destination Earth on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Galaga: Destination Earth on a Mac is through Parallels, which allows you to virtualize a Windows machine on Macs. The setup is very easy and it works for Apple Silicon Macs as well as for older Intel-based Macs.

Parallels supports the latest version of DirectX and OpenGL, allowing you to play the latest PC games on any Mac. The latest version of DirectX is up to 20% faster.

Our favorite feature of Parallels Desktop is that when you turn off your virtual machine, all the unused disk space gets returned to your main OS, thus minimizing resource waste (which used to be a problem with virtualization).

Galaga: Destination Earth installation steps for Mac

Step 1
Go to Parallels.com and download the latest version of the software.
Step 2
Follow the installation process and make sure you allow Parallels in your Mac’s security preferences (it will prompt you to do so).
Step 3
When prompted, download and install Windows 10. The download is around 5.7GB. Make sure you give it all the permissions that it asks for.
Step 4
Once Windows is done installing, you are ready to go. All that’s left to do is install Galaga: Destination Earth like you would on any PC.
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