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.
Galaxian is an iconic video game from the golden age of gaming history.
In fact, Galaxian was Namco‘s response to Space Invaders. It came out in 1979 and enthralled gamers with its hypnotic but brutal gameplay. Which it still does, to this day.
Released into video game arcades in 1987, Irem‘s side-scrolling shoot ’em up, R-Type, is considered by many to be the best of its type (pun intended).
Penetrator is a side-scrolling shooter, developed by Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler (as Beam Software) and published by Melbourne House in 1982.
The original Defender on the Atari 2600 is rubbish, but Defender II is the shizzle.
Novagen released the Atari ST version of Encounter in 1991.
The Amiga version of Encounter was first released in 1991 (a full seven years after the original release) by Novagen Software.
Paul Woakes‘ classic first-person ‘tank’ shooter Encounter was released simultaneously on the Atari 800 and C64 in 1983.
Paul Woakes‘ classic first-person shooter on the Commodore 64, Encounter, wowed gamers back in 1983 when it was first released.
The King of Grabs 