Shoot 'em up
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Image:Silvergun.jpg A shoot-em-up (shmup for short in some areas, and also known as arcade shooter, twitch shooter, space shooter, or sometimes simply just shooter, with shoot 'em ups being the most popular subgenre of shooter), is a computer and video game genre where the player has limited control of their character or machine and the focus is almost entirely on annihilation of their enemies. Almost all shoot 'em ups keep track of the player's score, a feature not found in many modern game genres. While the genre can have 3D graphics, the gameplay is almost exclusively in a linear, 2D style. The genre arguably started in the arcades with Space Invaders, and has experienced numerous different games in many formats. Popularity expanded with the addition of two-player simultaneous cooperative modes starting the mid-1980s. There are now several sub-genres that have their own particular gameplay characteristics. Shooters have a large following today, most notably in Japan, and many titles utilize the Internet through online ranking systems.
Sometimes non-shoot 'em ups are described as "shooters", particularly because of the extensive amount of gunplay involved in the game. light gun shooters are commonly referred to as shooters, because it is the primary action involved. Similarly, first-person shooters are also referred to similarly for the same reasons. While some shoot'em ups can be referred to as rail shooters, this term is an over-arching concept that can apply to interactive movies, light gun games, and action games.
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Fixed shooter
Fixed shooters represent the bulk of the earliest shoot 'em up games. They have the most simplistic premises and the most simplistic controls, especially in terms of aiming. They are characterized by a static environment and a static number of enemies per level, although this stipulation does not precluded that each level can have a different number or enemies or a different setting, as is the case with Midway's Gorf.
Single screen shooters
Image:Spaceinvaders.png A single screen shooter, also known as its generic fixed shooter or gallery shooter typically only allows players their one or two-dimensional position on the screen. Single screen shooters are basically the oldest popular type of shooters, and represent the bulk of shoot 'em ups from 1977 through 1983. One of the most popular games of all time, Space Invaders, falls into this sub-genre. Early single screen shooters allowed only one-dimensional movement, while later titles such as Galaga allowed two-dimensional movement, but without rotation. Enemies usually form in a gallery, and the game setup is most often in a vertical orientation. Unlike other types of shooters, the gameplay involves eliminating every enemy on the screen in order to complete the current round or level. Typically, the number of enemies remains constant through each level, only the speed and number of projectiles fired increase in each level.
Example single screen shooters — Space Invaders, Galaxian, Phoenix, Galaga
Tube shooter
Image:GyrussArcade.png Tube shooters comprises of games where players move forward through a "tube", essentially a 2D scrolling shooter plane rolled into a cylinder or extended to a three dimensional volume. Movement is usually restricted to the ring formed by the edge of the curved plane. This is considered more of a niche variety of shooter, appearing mostly in the early 1980s. The reason for this is because, this type of shooter came at a time when arcade hardware had not progressed enough to allow full three-dimensional movement. This type of game is a pseudo-simulation of that. Recent games to utilize this type of gameplay are Tempest 2000, its sequel Tempest 3000 and the freeware from ABA Games Torus Trooper.
Example tube shooters — Tempest, Gyruss, Tube Panic
Multi-directional shooter
Multi-directional shooters, also called area shooters, allow freedom of movement and orientation in a 2D environment. The first game of this type was Asteroids, in 1979.
Most multi-directional shooters can be further put into two classes based on their control system. Some allow the player to move up, down, left, right, or diagonally only. Others use a more realistic, physics-based system of rotating and thrusting. Another alternative is mouse control.
Some multidirectional shooters use two joysticks as the input; one for movement, and the other for firing. This style was popularized by Eugene Jarvis in the several titles he created for Midway/Williams and is an effective means of allowing independent moving and firing. This unique input configuration often left console ports with only a crude approximation of the arcade controls, resulting in the use of four buttons as directional firing, or the use of both the first and second player controllers to achieve the desired effect. Some modern console systems may be able to avoid this problem, as some have two analog joysticks on the controllers.
Some titles in this genre are often considered manic shooters, due to the large quantity of enemies on screen at any given time. The player has to avoid being surrounded by "carving" a hole out of the swath of enemies, while traversing the gameplay area. These games require extensive hand-eye coordination, as the player has to look and shoot in different places while analyzing the attacks of over a hundred enemies simultaneously. Today, the Xbox 360, through its Xbox Live Arcade has brought resurgent popularity to the multi-directional shooter subgenre. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved has become the top selling game on the service, with over 45,000 purchases and downloads as of January 13 2006 [1]. Several other Eugene Jarvis-created shooters are also available on the service, including enhanced versions of Smash TV and Robotron: 2084.
The Strike series created by Electronic Arts throughout the 1990s is a popular franchise of multi-directional shooters. These titles are similar to #3/4 view shooters in apperance, but have the gameplay of multi-directional shooters. The last two titles in the series, "Soviet Strike" and Nuclear Strike, even utilized 3d graphics.
Example multi-directional shooters — Robotron: 2084, Time Pilot, Bosconian, Smash TV, Geometry Wars, Sinistar, Desert Strike
Run and gun games
Template:Main Image:Gunstar heroes-lvl1.png Run and gun games, a hybrid of the shoot 'em up and platform genres, are a genre commonly confused with shoot 'em ups. Run and gun games are popular and distinguishable in their own right and are considered a sub-genre of shoot'em up games. These titles are multi-directional as they mandate that the players fire in many different directions. Titles in this genre are characterized by the same amount of intense action as other shoot 'em ups, but with added abilities for evasion, such as jumping and ducking. As the name would suggest, the action revolves around evading enemies (running) and destroying enemies (gunning). Unlike most shoot 'em ups, these games focus on individual people are presented on a much smaller scale, although the games could allow the use of vehicles. Run and guns, like other games, can be shown from a side or top-down perspective, or both like Super Contra. Typically the side-view games utilize many more platform game elements than their overhead bretheren; they require the player to jump over pits and obstacales. The top-down variants are often referred to as overhead shooters.
Example side-view run and guns — Contra series, Metal Slug series, Turrican, Gunstar Heroes
Example overhead run and guns — Shock Troopers, Commando, Heavy Barrel, Out Zone
Scrolling shooters
Vertical scrolling shooter
Image:Raiden (game).png Vertical scrolling shooters, or vert shooters for short, are largely similar to horizontal scrollers, but the direction of scroll tends to force a different viewpoint on the game: vertical scrollers are nearly always viewed from above. This means that it is less common to have solid obstacles in these games, as the player is usually above them. Perhaps because of this difference, vertical scrollers tend to be more intense, focusing on shooting and dodging copious amounts of projectiles.
The first vertical scrolling shooter was Xevious, released in 1982. This game introduced many concepts that are standard in scrolling shooters today, such as an episodic level structure, and bosses. It can be argued that very early games like Galaxian can be considered vertical scrollers, as they are set against a constantly scrolling starfield. However, they are generally classed as fixed shooters along with Space Invaders, as the stars are purely for visual effect and add nothing to the gameplay.
When the "top-down" or "overhead" names are used, the line becomes blurrier. By this definition, Space Invaders would likely be the first game of the type – and indeed, many consider it the first true top-down shooter. As with their horizontal counterparts, some vertical shooters may allow a degree of free horizontal movement.
Example vertical shooters — 1942, Giga Wing, Ikaruga, Mars Matrix, Radiant Silvergun, Raiden, Raptor: Call of the Shadows
Monitors and orientation
Vertical scrolling shooters come into two more varieties; Tate shoot 'em ups are those that are played on a vertically oriented monitor, and Yoko shoot 'em ups are those played on a standard horizontal monitor set-up. Tate shoot 'em ups usually begin as standard Jamma cabinets with Tate monitors. However, the screen orientation can be a potential issue when the game is ported to home consoles with regular TVs.
There are four known ways to adapt a tate shoot 'em up to home consoles:
- Black borders on the sides – the most common form of adaption but sacrifices screen size
- Turning the TV on the side – a practice that may damage some TVs
- Zooming or stretching the game area
- Horizontal gameplay orientation – an optional mode in some games, such as Ikaruga
Horizontal scrolling shooter
Image:Gradius 04.png Most horizontal scrolling shooters are played on an epynomously oriented screen, but there are a few exceptions - such as Darius, which uses more than one monitor to create an extensive playfield, and Stinger, which uses a vertically oriented screen. As well as battling enemies, much of the challenge in horizontal scrollers tends to come from navigating the environment, as invariably contact with the level results in either the immediate death of or damage to the player's character. Some games, such as ones in the Gradius series always feature a maze-like level that is almost solely focused on avoiding collisions. Enemies are more likely to come from behind the player's ship in these types of games than their vertically scrolling counterparts are.
Typically, the scrolling in these games is continuous, such that the player is led through a level by the game. There is also sometimes a degree of vertical freedom, in which the player can move up or down on a playing area which is taller than the screen itself. (Thunder Force IV and Dragon Breed are two games which take this to extremes).
Almost all horizontal scrolling shooters view the player's avatar from the side, and present the level in cross-section, such that the player appears to be flying 'through' something, such as a landscape or a mothership. The first horizontal scroller was arguably Defender, released in 1980, although it shares few features with other horizontal scrollers. Horizontally scrolling shooters, along with their vertical counterparts, remain very popular today.
Example horizontal shooters — Gradius, Progear, R-Type, Scramble, Thunderforce
Multi-scrolling shooter
Image:Salamander 02.png Multi-scrolling shooters are a combination of several different types of scrolling shooters. Typically, it involves the combination of vertical and horizontal levels, but examples exist that utilize other types. For example, Gradius III has two levels that where the player must guide the ship through a tube-like tunnel, avoiding collisions.
Example multi-scrolling shoot 'em ups — Salamander, Axelay, Vanguard, Silver Surfer
Isometric shooter
Image:Zaxxon game.png Also known as a 3/4 view shooter or three-quarter perspective shooter, an isometric shooter utilizes vertical shooter's playing field that is modified for perspective. In a traditional scrolling shooter situation, the upwards/forwards is diagonal and the player simulates moving by the gameworld scrolling around diagonally. Perspective limits the size of the playing field, so generally there is additional focus on avoiding obstacles than shooting enemy ships. Isometric shooters are not limited to scrolling shooters, but can be multi-directional/area shooters as well.
These shoot 'em ups have not been a popular choice to date, although there have been a handful of popular titles. This type of shooter, much like the tube shooter, is more of an anachronism in today's games. These titles were remarkable in their times for their pseudo-3d graphics; when the hardware became sophisticated enough to fully render such graphics, these games had lost their appeal, in favor of the more traditional vertically and horizontally scrolling types.
Example isometric shooters — Zaxxon, Viewpoint, Blazer
Shooting gallery
Image:Nam-1975.png Often interchangable with light gun games, although many could also be played using a regular joypad and an on-screen cursor to signify where the bullets are being aimed. When these debuted, they were typically played from a first-person perspective, with enemy fire that occured anywhere on the screen damaging or killing the player. As they evolved away from the use of light guns, the player came to be represented by an on-screen avatar, usually someone on the bottom of the screen, who could move and avoid enemy attacks while returning fire. These sorts of shooters almost always utilize horizontal scrolling to the right to indicate level progression, with enemies appearing in waves from predestined locations in the background or from the sides.
As light gun games became more prevalent and started to make use of fully 3D backgrounds (such as the Time Crisis or House of the Dead series), these sorts of games fell out of popular production, but many (like NAM-1975) still have their fanbase today.
Example shooting galleries — Blood Bros., Cabal, Laser Invasion, NAM-1975, Operation Wolf
3D shooter
Image:StarFox SNES Screenshot.jpg 3D shooters pertain to the same gameplay elements that occur in a standard shooter (hordes of enemies, obstacles, bosses, moveable protagonist ship) but occur in a three-dimensional environment. Because the player does not have ultimate choice in where the protagnoist moves, these games are often known as rail shooters, although that term eclipses a number of genres. They generally offer the most variety of any type of shoot'em up, composed of levels that contain massive differences in environment, resulting in varied gameplay. For example, external areas (such as space fields) tend to focus on shooting action, while interior areas tend to focus on navigation and collision avoidance. Ship speed is more of a factor in this type than others, as many obstacles have to be correctly timed to be avoided. However, the main gameplay difference from other types of shooters is that targeting must occur within a two-dimensional area, where in other types it is strictly one-dimensional. Gameplay is usually presented in a third-person perspective, but with first-person sometimes used (toggleable).
3D shooters are a result of advancements made in arcade hardware that allowed scalable graphics to be presented. The first 3D shooters utilized vector graphics, the earliest way of representing true three-dimensional environments. The most notable example of this technique is in the Star Wars arcade game, which became extremely popular due to the corresponding release of the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Sprite-based shooters have also been developed, such as Williams' Blaster and After Burner II. To add to the immersion, these games often used elaborate cockpits with an assortment of authentic-feeling controls such as yokes and throttles, as in G-LOC: Air Battle. 3D shooters saw a notable increase and development of popularity during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, as advancements in technology allowed for texture-mapped and polygon-rich environments. The mid-90s saw the beginning of this genre on home consoles with the establishment of franchises like Star Fox and Panzer Dragoon. 3D shooters are still prevalent in the arcades today, as they draw crowds despite being expensive to play.
Example 3D shooters — After Burner II, Red Baron, Space Harrier, ThunderBlade, Star Fox
Variant styles of shoot 'em up games
Cute 'em up
Image:Airzonk 02.gif Cute 'em ups (a portmanteau of "cute" and "shoot 'em up") is any shoot' em up game with a much less serious tone. The graphics are cartoon-like and simplified, and the colors bright and varied. This is in contrast to the typical dark "science fiction" graphical themes of most shoot 'em ups. Cute 'em ups also include games that are based on childrens' anime. The bosses tend to be intentionally absurd or nonsensical, often characterized by anthropomorphic features. For example, instead of a large transforming robot as a boss, the player might encounter a large fish with human features. Weapons tend to be more fantastic as well, although this is not always the cases (such as in Parodius). Where missiles and lasers would be used, weapons such as large fists or brightly-colored shapes are used instead. However the pleasant appearance does not necessarily mean that the game itself has been made easier – cute 'em ups are often just as difficult as their more serious counterparts.
Example Cute 'em ups — The Twinbee series, the Parodius series, Air Zonk, Fantasy Zone
Manic shooter
Image:PCByukari140.jpg Template:Main A manic shooter or bullet curtain or bullet hell is a more obscure sub-genre, that has only seen streaks of popularity in Japan. While standard shooters generally have a comparably few amount of bullets and a larger hitbox for the player, Bullet Curtain style shooters are the exact opposite. Many bullets fill the screen, while the player usually has a very small margin at which they are hit. shoot 'em ups of this style are usually 'Vertical shooter' types, however, other types are known to exist.
Example Manic shooters — The Tōhō series, Psyvariar 2, Batsugun, Giga Wing, DoDonPachi
Competitive
This style of shooter features two players playing simultaneously. Instead of working together, the two players are trying to outlast and thwart the other player. The field is usually split-screen with a vertical shooter type.
Example competitive shooters — Twinkle Star Sprites, Quarth
See also
- Scrolling shooter - more specific information about scrolling shooters.
- Shooter game - more general information about shooting games.
External links
- SHMUPs! Archive of shooter listings, including reviews and forums.
- Shoot the Core shoot 'em up site with huge PC shoot 'em up database.
- Sega-16's Shmups Extravaganza Article discussing every single shmup made for the Genesis, Sega CD, and 32X.
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