This is Universals' answer to Galaxian, a vertical spacey shooter. The gameplay is very similar to galaxian, the points scoring of ships is virtually the same (point values double if you destroy the ships in attack and not in convoy). Bonus point for hitting the guardian after destroying the 3 escorts that attack with it. While the convoy animation isn't as smooth, or indeed the attacking ship motions not all that smooth, the ships do move differently and quite purposefully compared to galaxian, there are no predictable arcs of attack, and their bomb release is erratic, as well as the falling speed is not consistent. Altogether a good and very challenging remix of galaxian. One thing this beats galaxian on is the audio, like galaxian it uses totally analogue circuits to make up the game noises, but these are far superior to galaxians efforts, with great whooshing noises as enemies fly past you, and multiple attack ships descend. Universal licensed this to many companies for worldwide distribution, in Germany, some very unique looking wall-mounted machines were made by ADP Automaten. In the UK it was licensed to Electrocoin who fabricated their own woodgrain cabinets. Cosmic alien was originally designed and built in Japan.

The tabletop cabinet has as frontglass painted with Cosmic Alien artwork. The joystick is located at the bottom and the fire button is found to the right of that.

Click image for larger view.