Gaming The Wonderful World of Shooters

[Shinmaru]

The shooter...pretty much a dead genre these days. A good shooter is a very rare commodity right now; they come around only once in a blue moon, it seems. Sky Gunner and Ikaruga are the last two good shooters that I can think of. R-Type Final is coming out, too, though I doubt it will sell well (hopefully, I'm wrong, heh).

It wasn't always this way, though. Pretty much since the beginning of gaming, there have been shooters. Asteroids and Galaga were among some of the most successful games of their time, regardless of genre. Some of the best shooters in history were released during the time of the Nintendo/Super Nintendo. Games such as Salamander, Darius, Gradius, R-Type, 1942, etc. are all worth experiencing.

The trend of great shooters continued onto the PlayStation, which was actually a good console for shooters. Einhander, G Darius, R-Type Delta, R-Types...some damn good shooters, right there, all begging to be experienced.

And that's what shooters are, to me; an experience unlike any other. A lot of genres just can't offer the white-knuckle thrills that can come out of a really good shooter. Just the feeling of being surrounded on all sides by enemy fighters, blasting away frantically at the ships, sweaty palms barely able to grip the controller...shooters give you quite the rush.

Are you a fan of the shooter genre? What are your memories of shooters? Why do you like shooters? If you don't like them, then why don't you like them?

*hopes to get some good discussion out of this*

[Boba Fett]

[color=green]I?ve played a fair amount of shooters and must say that they?re definitely gone downhill in quality over the years.

I?ve played all kinds of shooters, from the classic Asteroids to the World War II era shooter [u]Castle Wolfenstien[/u]. For the most part, I find them addictive regardless of quality. As long as the graphics aren?t miserable, there are multiple weapons (A sniper rifle is a huge plus) and you can make accurate shots from a distance, I?m satisfied.

The only truly terrible shooter I?ve played is [u]Back Track[/u] for Game Boy Advance. Haven?t heard of it? There?s a good reason why. However, this does not mean that all Game Boy Advance shooters are sub-par garbage. [u]James Bond: Nightfire[/u] for Game Boy Advance was vastly superior to several computer-based shooters I?ve played.

However my most positive shooter experiences have been with craft-based shooters. These include the addictive [u]Black Hawk Striker[/u], which is an AIM game, and [u]Star Fox 64[/u]. Both of these games have immense replay value and are just as enjoyable on their hundredth try as their first. [u]Star Fox 64[/u] in particular is a brilliant shooter game that I play fairly often with friends.

Overall, I think shooters are underrated as a genre. They?re both fun and addictive, in my opinion more than any other type of game.[/color]

[James]

[color=#707875]There are quite a few shooters that I missed out on. The most noteable probably being Ikaruga. I don't think that came out on GameCube here, or at least, I haven't noticed it. That's one game that I was interested in picking up.

The first shooter I ever owned was Gradius on the NES. I have really fond memories of that game. There was something truly addictive about its completely uncompromising nature.

And now, I've got Gradius III & IV for PS2. Really awesome games. I particularly like Gradius IV, because you get those "newer" 3D graphics, with the same awesome and tight 2D gameplay.

I guess Star Fox is another big shooting franchise that I enjoy, although I never really got into the original game. The original always felt more like a tech demo rather than a game, for me. I'm not entirely sure why. At the time, it was like "okay, this is 3D...but really, really boring". I just never found it terribly interesting.

Star Fox 64 was really a favourite though. I played that game to death, though I didn't particularly enjoy the multiplayer mode.

But my all-time favourite shooter would have to be Super R-Type. Gorgeous visuals, fantastic sound...and stunning level designs. I think that was easily my most-played shooter. Ahh...memories. ^_^[/color]

[Shinmaru]

[QUOTE=James][color=#707875] I guess Star Fox is another big shooting franchise that I enjoy, although I never really got into the original game. The original always felt more like a tech demo rather than a game, for me. I'm not entirely sure why. At the time, it was like "okay, this is 3D...but really, really boring". I just never found it terribly interesting.

Star Fox 64 was really a favourite though. I played that game to death, though I didn't particularly enjoy the multiplayer mode.

But my all-time favourite shooter would have to be Super R-Type. Gorgeous visuals, fantastic sound...and stunning level designs. I think that was easily my most-played shooter. Ahh...memories. ^_^[/color][/QUOTE]

Ha, at least now I know I'm not alone in not liking the original Star Fox lol. I was never a really huge fan of the game; I just couldn't get into it. As you said, it was just extremely boring. The only game I felt really used the Super FX/FX2 chip effectively was Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.

Star Fox 64, however, was awesome. Fast-paced, lots of enemies to shoot and some good boss battles. Loved it to the end and it's still one of my favorite N64 games.

And I'm in agreeance that Super R-Type is pretty much the god of shooters...the game struck a great balance between thrills and difficulty (the first two R-Types were fun but they were hellishly difficult, even for shooters). Super R-Type was hard but not so hard that it drove you away from the game - it takes a really good shooter to achieve that sort of balance. To this day, it remains one of my all time favorite games ^_^

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]Shooters have never really been a favorite genre for me, but I do enjoy them occasionally. As some people may know, I was a bit obsessed with a little freeware shooter called Zeldarius a while back, heh. ^_^;

I think the first time I ever really enjoyed a shooter was when we got a PS1 demo disc with a playable demo of G Darius on it. I must have played the demo level about 20 times; I loved the concept of capturing enemy ships to have them as options. Capturing the huge fish ships was challenging and a lot of fun, since you had to hit them in just the right place at the right time with a capture ball, but their immense firepower was insane.

Now more recently, I played through Zero Wing a couple times, a Sega Genesis shooter than was originally an arcade game in Japan. (And also the origin of the All Your Base phenomenon). While not being all that hard or complex, it was still decently fun, and provided a few intense moments. Plus, being able to see the actual opening movie with the horrible translation was still hilarious even after watching the flash videos on the net.[/color]

[Guest cloricus]

[quote name='Shinmaru']Star Fox 64, however, was awesome. Fast-paced, lots of enemies to shoot and some good boss battles. Loved it to the end and it's still one of my favourite N64 games.[/quote]I loved that game, it just ruled. I walked into EB one day with 30$ and saw star fox 64 (had no idea what it was) and it was 35$ so just to see if I could bug the guy I asked if I could have it for 20$ or so and he said yes which spoiled my fun but I went home and ended up playing it through for the next three days (several times) and just really enjoyed it. In fact I still like multiplayer and just to sit back and knock off a few levels now and then. :P Other shooters... I was only really into them when I was younger and we had our 486 and I assume most of you guys wouldn't know about them.

[Semjaza]

It's kind of funny that Starfox 64 is one of Nintendo's less respected games. I remember reading about some event in Japan where Miyamoto was about to come up on the stage. The announcer read off some of his games like Super Mario 64 andOcarina of Time and people applauded loudly. When Starfox 64 was mentioned, there apparently was noticably less applause.

I don't really get why. To this day I can't really get into the original. Starfox 64 blows it away in any way imaginable, in my opinion. Except maybe some of the really annoying voices...

One of my favorite shooters is Life Force. It's basically just an altered Gradius clone (although it is released by Konami, which originally made that game anyway). It's based on this weird sci-fi movie that most people don't even remember by now. Really awesome game though. Check it out if you haven't.

I have R-Types on my PSX and that's always fun to go back to. I've heard that wasn't very easy to get, but I saw it for $10 at a local shop so I picked it up.

Dreamcast also had some cool shooting games. Of course there's the original Ikaruga, which I have (since before the GCN version came out). There's also this game called Bangai-O which is really cool.

Bangai-O is different than most shooters because you're in a mech and not a plane. You have full flight control over it though. The translation is hilarious. Apparently the Japanese creator sent over a really bad translation for the English publishers to localize. They thought it was so funny that they just kept it like that and stuck it in the game. I'm personally glad they did heh.