Known as Gradius in Japan – but Nemesis everywhere else – Konami‘s classic 1985 shoot ’em up is one of the earliest progressive weapons blasters, with distinct levels and boss battles.
The game is somewhat reminiscent of the classic side-scrolling Scramble (also by Konami), but in Nemesis you fly a ship called the “Vic Viper”, and which has a variety of different weapons which can be powered-up by collecting capsules left by destroyed enemies.
Japanese developer Cave made a name for itself in the mid 1990s with a series of manic vertically scrolling shooters, including ESP Ra.De. from 1998.
Konami‘s Axelay is considered a cult classic among shoot ’em up fans.
First released on the Super Nintendo in 1992, Axelay cleverly mixes side-scrolling and vertically-scrolling blasting action, and also makes excellent use of the Super Nintendo‘s infamous ‘Mode 7’ scaling technique, to create a weird ‘cylindrical’ rolling effect on some of the levels.
The spiritual successor to Smash TV (in the same way that Smash TV was the spiritual predecessor to Robotron 2084), and a brilliant overhead shooter with 360 degree blasting action.
Commando is a classic vertically-scrolling run-and-gun game, first released by Capcom into arcades in 1985.
Williams‘ brilliant 1990 arcade hit, Smash TV, is an insane overhead shooter with a wicked sense of humour.
You play a contestant in a futuristic game show – one in which you must kill to survive. And you have to kill a lot of people, robots, monsters, and snakes, to make it to the end.
Williams Electronics‘ iconic Defender is one of the highest-grossing arcade games of all time.
Jeff Minter‘s classic Iridis Alpha is a weird horizontal shoot ’em up first released in 1986 through Llamasoft and Hewson Consultants.
There isn’t a great deal of information around about Uridium Plus. Like: whether this version has any technical enhancements (like Heavy Metal Paradroid does), or not. I have vague recollections that this version was somehow technically better, although I could be wrong. It’d be nice to know…
Here are a set of grabs from the original Uridium, by Andrew Braybrook. It was first published by Hewson Consultants in 1986, for the Commodore 64.
