A fine side-scrolling action game released in 1988 on the budget Rack-It label (for a mere £2.99), Battle Valley is a hectic mixture of tank blasting and helicopter flying, with a pounding soundtrack and solid graphics.
Tag Archives: shoot em up
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, PC
This 2002 sequel to Serious Sam is very similar to the first game. The first level even has the same monsters, but does blast through them quickly to get to the new stuff. And there is quite a bit of new stuff. Weapons, environments, enemies, bosses, et cetera.
Serious Sam: The First Encounter, PC
As ‘generic’ first-person shooters go, Serious Sam is up there with the best of them.
And – let’s face it – the market is flooded with generic first-person shooters…
Gunhed, PC Engine
Gunhed is a classic vertically-scrolling. progressive-weapons shooter released for the PC Engine in 1989. It is based on the Toho film of the same name. In North America the game goes by the name of Blazing Lasers.
Blood, PC
Monolith‘s 1997 shooter – Blood – is a first-person satire of every horror movie you ever saw, and also a few that you probably didn’t.
Ikari Warriors, Arcade
SNK‘s famous arcade shooter, Ikari Warriors, was released in 1986 at a time when many Commando clones were saturating the market, but managed to stand out against the competition.
Contra: Hard Corps, Megadrive/Genesis
Contra: Hard Corps is Konami‘s attempt to recreate the thrills and spills of the legendary SNES game, Contra III: The Alien Wars (aka Super Probotector), on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, and – to be honest – it falls a little short of its SNES cousin.
Star Raiders, Atari 8-bit
Doug Neubauer‘s 1979 release, Star Raiders, is a very important game indeed. Predominantly because it was so hugely influential on many other games that followed it. Some people even point to it being the spark that started the first-person shooter market, but that is probably going a little too far…
Combat, Atari 2600
Combat was designed by Atari, Inc. and first released for the Atari 2600 in 1977 and was the pack-in game for the system until 1982 (meaning: you got a Combat cartridge with the console, upon purchase).
It was one of the first home video games I ever played (probably the same for millions of others) and it enthralled me. Yes, Combat is very simple by today’s standards, but in 1977 it was a revelation and was much cloned by other developers.
Firebird, MSX
Known in its native Japan as Hi no Tori Hououhen, and Firebird in the West, this 1987 Konami release for the MSX2 is a vertically-scrolling shooter of some repute.
The King of Grabs 