This 1994 Super Nintendo exclusive (at the time) is half sequel, half remake of Irem‘s classic arcade shooter, R-Type.
Continue reading R-Type III: The Third Lightning, Super Nintendo
This 1994 Super Nintendo exclusive (at the time) is half sequel, half remake of Irem‘s classic arcade shooter, R-Type.
Continue reading R-Type III: The Third Lightning, Super Nintendo
Andrew Braybrook‘s classic C64 shooter, Uridium, was given a 16-bit release courtesy of Joe Hellesen and Mindscape in 1986.
A fine 16-bit conversion of the classic Mercenary by Paul Woakes, written by Woakes himself it seems. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s a great game and deserves doing right, so who better to code it than the original creator?
A space exploration and trading game from 1989 that was meant to rival Elite. And it almost did. Except for a fundamental problem… The problem was: travelling around; jumping from planet to planet was… To put it mildly: sticky.
Starglider 2 was met with pretty much universal acclaim when it was first released in 1988. And – as a 3D shooter – it broke new ground in a number of different areas.
While all the other space exploration and combat games on 16-bit home computers flail around in their own mucky diapers, Frontier: Elite II makes a mockery of everything else in its class by not only being a staggering piece of programming, but also a damn fine, playable game too.
People forget how early Sinistar was – 1983. Which was a hell of a year for old arcade shooters!
Of the first colour arcade shooters, the class of 1983 were definitely second or third generation – in terms of ideas, patterns, movement, challenge, and sophistication. Graphically they were becoming a great improvement over early shoot ’em ups.
Sinistar is a good example of this. The graphics are much more detailed and colourful than the old arcade shooters of 1980/81.
Sega‘s Zaxxon is an early arcade shooter that broke the mould. It was first released in 1982.
Namco‘s Galaga – the sequel to Galaxian – came out in 1981 and was an immediate hit with gamers.
Gone were the days of Space Invaders and rigid attack patterns – the baddies in Galaga danced around the screen; made circles, and flew around in distinct and fluid attack patterns. It was new and it was revolutionary!
Moon Cresta was released by Nichibutsu in 1980 and was extremely popular in arcades.
It is another colourful, fixed-screen shooter, this time with a scrolling starfield to give the impression of movement.