Shmup you! The official shoot 'em up thread

[Marco Malvado]

SHMUPS!

Even if you don't know the word, you've probably played them: arcade-style shooters where you control a single, lonely ship/soldier/flying octopus/jetbike defending the world/village/universe/hive against a never-ending swarm of aliens/bugs/disembodied heads/monsters throwing thousands of bullets/arrows/maggots/fireballs at you while you shoot, dodge, weave, shoot, power up and shoot your way to the inevitable boss encounter. What you might not know is that this ancient videogame genre is still alive and well thanks to scores of fans and (mostly Japanese) indie game developers.

Since I've been heavily shmup-obsessed lately, I thought I'd share my latest passion with my fellow H!psters. So run out and buy yourself a USB game controller for your computer, click the following links and then come on back here to discuss your favorite shmups--console, arcade, computer and all the gray areas (~cough~emulators~cough~) inbetween.

Shmup links:

http://shmups.com/

http://shootthecore.moonpod.com

http://www.tigsource.com/features/doujin-shmups.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_'em_up

[panida]

USB game controller I don't have it
I want to play it too

[soveryshiny]

Ikaruga is still my favorite ever.  The coop mode in that game was so ungodly fun to play through with a friend.

Otherwise I've always liked the Shikigami no Shiro and Dondopachi series on PS2.  Haven't played much of the doujin ones on PC.

[arun.yothin]

Oh, god, not these damn games. I was kinda getting into them for a while shortly after Ikaruga came out in the US. They were kinda fun, but I don't like them enough to learn the patterns. I might still have some of the ones I downloaded a while back. One was just black and white, like wire-frame(sort of, can't think of a better way to describe it). The other was Sentimental Shooting(?) a hentai one where the level was a picture of a girl. While fighting enemies, you had to shoot off the girl's clothes. Shoot off enough and you go back again to shoot off her underwear and then I think you had to fight the boss. I don't remember it being too challenging, but I doubt that was the point of the game.

[nop]

Macross: Digital Mission VF-X .  I like the ending song and special aircraft dual joystick controller mode.

[amuse]

I love vertical shooters 

One of my fav ones is ESP Ra.De. It was the first maniac shooter that I really enjoyed playing over and over.. and over again.
http://shmups.classicgaming.gamespy.com/reviews/esprade/index.html

[StreakInTheSky]

I got into a couple japanese curtain shooters about a year ago. Those games are awesome

I suck at shooter games, but they are addicting.

[Marco Malvado]

I just discovered the old Parodius games. Somehow I missed them entirely when they were first out. Crazy-ass parody versions of Gradius (parody+gradius=parodius...wacky Japanese). I've been rocking hard on the third one in the series on a SNES emulator the last few days. Here's a page about the series.

The vertical, bullet curtain/bullet hell shmups are crazy hard but really rewarding once you get the hang of them.

[Aioros]

Yay for shoot 'em ups! I usually play these games when the lines for Tekken are long. My faves would probably be Strikers 1945 and the Raiden series. Raystorm was kinda neat too, letting you kill enemies even before they get on the same plane/layer as you.

I was able to get a Macross rom for the snes before. It was quite good too. Gameplay was similar to Gradius, but the weapons depend on what mode your Valkyrie is in. Max's homing bullets are teh shit!

[vicmu]

I was able to get a Macross rom for the snes before. It was quite good too. Gameplay was similar to Gradius, but the weapons depend on what mode your Valkyrie is in. Max's homing bullets are teh shit!

i remember that game! it was awesome~

anyone ever play macross m3? it was all in japanese, so i couldn't figure out what was happening, but the intro movie was great
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VJT_WrZmLlY

[hibachifinal]

why didnt i see this thread before.

shmups (and fighters and puzzlers) are the only games i play these days...

anywho... almost all of my game library is shmups.
hrmm.. notably for my dreamcast and ps2

some of my fave shmups...
1. Guwange (in fact, i loved it so much in MAME, i shed a mighty fortune for a PCB, now i can play it the way it was meant to be played)
-guwange is like, a work of art. it's one of CAVE's finest imho. although it may not be as fast paced, it's still very much has the danmaku crazyness of manic shmups. what i love about guwange is how they got the atmosphere right. Muromachi era japan, and youkai galore, with an upbeat trad. japanese music scoring.

2. Ibara , another game by CAVE, but in fact plays a lot more like Raizing games, i dunno what to say about this game really besides, it's very solid and very much challenging, although, i've yet to play it's psuedosequel, Pink Sweets.

3. Ikaruga - probably the most popular modern shmups... due to it's reputation of being highly praised and overrated, in a sense, i also do think it's overrated, but then it also does deserve praise. one of the most basic, yet most innovative. not to mention, it's probably the most "EPIC" shmup you'll ever play. i rate it higher than it's older brother (and even more praised) Radiant Silvergun.

4. Twinkle Star Sprites - this one is only part shmup, the other part is a vs. puzzler (i.e. puyo puyo). a great fusion of genres right here. it may look childish and cutesy, but it makes a great competitive game.

5. Under Defeat - a simple oldschool style military shmup, if you have a dreamcast, by all means play this, and see the best graphical effects the console could offer.

and so on.... i could go on and on about shmups save them for later.

[Marco Malvado]

1. Guwange (in fact, i loved it so much in MAME, i shed a mighty fortune for a PCB, now i can play it the way it was meant to be played)

That's so cool! So you have a cabinet you can put boards into?

I'm at the monitor-turned-sideways-playing-in-MAME-with-a-console-style-controller stage but starting preliminary work on building a dedicated MAME cabinet with a vertical monitor. Saving for one of these:



Absolutely LOVE Guwange! I agree it's one of Cave's finest games -- and considering how amazing most of their stuff is, that's saying a lot. I can't imagine ever getting tired of playing DoDonPachi and Progear proved they can rock a horizontal shmup with the best of them.