A man from country New South Wales broke the world record high score on Galaga over the weekend.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Phil Day scored 3.44 million after just over two hours play on Saturday night, eclipsing the previous best of 2.7 million set by an American player two years ago. Day told the SMH he celebrated the event quietly.
“There was no one else around. I wanted to signify that I had reached the 2.7 million mark for the video recording of the attempt, but I couldn’t get too excited and I was pretty exhausted.”
Congrats, Phil. Any man who has an original 1981 Galaga machine in their home gets our respect. Doubly so for being so awesome at it.

















brad
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:12 PMdont bother giving it to twin galaxies. they are a bunch of shysters!
Danny
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 6:25 PMTwin Galaxies… Yikes those guys are as trustworthy as Chinese dental hygiene products.
Aaron Clement
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:12 PMSo when can he expect two guys to break in and pull his machine apart to look for defects/hacks, then make a whole movie out of it?
doubleDizz
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:17 PMI didn’t think Twin Galaxies existed anymore…?
James
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:22 PMThat’s awesome. I think I’m going to grab Galaga off of XBLA to celebrate.
Stinky
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:29 PMThat’s a pretty mental score, it would be great to see the video.
Denaz
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:30 PMSuch a great game
Andrew Mills
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:35 PM“There was no one else around.”
A given… Had to be said.
Chuloopa
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:38 PMno one around hey??
i..-ahem-.. got to 4mil on galaga during my lunch break.. -ahem-
Chu Liu
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 1:17 PMIt would have been recorded as per twin galaxy requirements for evidence.
James Britton
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 7:42 AMIt’s only those that can do nothing that doubt that those who can DO.
Good work Phil. Don’t sweat the tall poppy syndrome.
David Holbeck
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:40 PMMy friend has been carrying a piece of paper in his wallet for about 10 years, his score from a machine in our local snooker club. I emailed him the article, his response:
“Man that is so annoying. I got 6,632,130 over about 5 hours.
Fired 30532 shots
Hit 27737
Yes I still have the bit of paper in my wallet”
Stinky
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 3:27 PMWas he using tournament settings? Double shoot variant? Easy? No shoot glitch?
David Holbeck
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 4:11 PMIt was so long ago that I doubt we could verify which Rank the machine was set to, but he didn’t use the no shoot glitch. It was just a plain old sit down Galaga machine, I don’t believe double shoot variant.
Maybe I should try to pull him out of retirement, but finding a machine would be a pain in the proverbial.
Alex Cullinan
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:43 PMhey! i was playing the galaga pastiche in Retro Game Challenge just before!
Jay Kay
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 7:30 PMAussies pwn at Galaga, come to a certain nightclub in Brisbane and I’ll show you whats what
Hirko
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 1:52 PMI know Phil Day personally and all of his record-breaking games have been video taped from start to end and vetted and verified by Twin Galaxies.
He plays on full tournament mode and makes an uncut recording of each game which starts with a view of his arcade machine’s board and dip switch settings then the complete game and ends with another inspection of the board and dip switch settings. I believe that these conditions are required by Twin Galaxies.
Chris
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 7:47 AMhey, phil is my english teacher. he is awesome and he lives for galaga. he never stops talking about it and i think he deserves this win!
thud thorax
Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 1:26 AMGalaga is like Blackjack, there’s a trick to it. Old school gamers know exactly what I’m talking about. During the summer holidays when I was sixteen, I used to regularly pull six to eight hour stints at the local corner store racking up an average of 5.4 million points till the shopkeeper kicked me out. Where do I go to get in on this World Record action?