firelight

More on Shoot 'em up's

A shoot-em-up is a computer and video game genre where the player has limited control of their character or machine (usually a jet fighter or spaceship) and the focus is almost entirely on annihilation of their enemies. Almost all shoot 'em ups display the player's score on a score counter, a feature not commonly found in recent videogame 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 use the Internet through online ranking systems.

The genre is occasionally abbrevated to shmup; other common nicknames for the genre include arcade shooter, twitch shooter, space shooter, and sometimes simply just shooter. 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.

The Word

The word "shmup" first originated in the British C64 magazine, Zzap 64, in 1985. They created a glossary of words they invented, which included the word shmup (they also used the word "Aardvark" for "Arcade Adventures", though this wasn't absorbed into common games parlance like shmup). The magazine was around during the C64's lifetime, during the 1980s and early 1990s. Various magazine scans are available online, proving this point.

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 preclude each level having a different number or enemies or a different setting, as is the case with Midway's Gorf.

Single screen shooters

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 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.

Tube Shooters

Tube shooters comprises 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 use this type of gameplay are Tempest 2000, its sequel Tempest 3000 and freeware Torus Trooper from ABA Games.
Example tube shooters include Tempest, Gyruss and Tube Panic.

Run and Gun Games

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 use many more platform game elements than their overhead brethren; they require the player to jump over pits and obstacales. The top-down variants are often referred to as overhead shooters.

3D Shooters

3D shooters (also known as Forward scrolling shooters or Rail 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 protagonist 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 used 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 Sega's After Burner. To add to the immersion, these games often used elaborate cockpits, frequently featuring motion using hydraulics, 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 1980's 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.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_

posted by Martin Crosbie @ 1:31 AM