A crucial midwife to the birth of the video gaming medium, shoot-em-ups have experimented and evolved on occasion, but never strayed far from their primeval nature: fittingly, the shmup stands tall today as one of the “purest” digital experiences available. This straightforward self-awareness still lives on today, within the classic gaming genre of shoot-em-ups, or “shmups” for short: the silly-sounding abbreviation, whose coining is generally attributed to Commodore-centric UK magazine Zzap!64, has grown so pervasive that fans are sometimes called “shmuppers” or “shmup-o’s” (in Japan the category is frequently labeled “STG”, ostensibly an abbreviation for “shooting game”). “Shooters”, as they were originally conceived, and unlike so many of their “legitimacy”-hungry descendants, make no apologies about what they are and the purpose they were created to serve. When pretense, pandering, and half-baked rationalizations were not allowed within spitting distance of the all-important “start” button. When the only “motivation” you or your onscreen character ever needed to keep going was “the screen doesn’t scroll the other way” “that, and the fleeting opportunity to enter a few measly letters onto a list that would reset every time the machine was unplugged. If you utter the word “shooter” in this day and age most gamers will assume that you’re talking about Call of Duty or Halo, but not too terribly long ago those seven letters meant something quite different: they represented the enduring spirit of a time when one button was all you needed, two was a luxury, and three was pushing the envelope.
BOMBERMAN TWINBEE DEVIANTART PS2
Shmup Libraries: TG16/PC Engine | Genesis/Megadrive | PS1 | Saturn | Dreamcast | PS2 | Gamecube | GBA About the Shmup Genre Shmups 101 | Beginner Shmups | Defining Shmups | Hidden Gem Shmups I hope you enjoy the detail and loving care that went into this piece!
BOMBERMAN TWINBEE DEVIANTART SERIES
Note from racketboy: Combining to popularity of our Genre 101 series (see Survival Horror 101, Beatem-ups 101, Platformers 101, and Fighters 101) and the expert shmup writing of BulletMagnet (see his guides to shmups for the Playstation, Saturn, and PS2 and the Games That Defined the Shmup Genre) this guide is one of most epic posts ever. Shmups 101: A Beginner’s Guide to 2D Shooters
0 kommentar(er)
