Old School Shooters...

Contra 4 is currently fucking me right in the ass. I never felt so impotent. I can't get past the 3rd or 4th level on friggin' normal, but I'm loving it. If you dig shooters as much as you say you do, the game was made for you. Super tough and unforgiving, but oh so fun.

That Metal Slug anthology I bought as soon as it came out. Used to play them at the arcade all the time, great to have them all one one disc. The controls seem to work the best if you use the NES controls, with the shake for grenades option turned on. It actually really helps when you're trying to quickly beat down bosses and lob grenades rapid fire.

If you've got a 360, grab Omega Five and Rez. Both are fantastic games, full of shmup goodness. I'm still curious about the one that's coming out tomorrow on XBLA, Triggerheart Exelica.

Genesis was the best system for shooters. Thunderforce, M.U.S.H.A, Gunstar Heroes... some great stuff.

I was a big fan of Tyrian for PC but not many seem to remember it.

Far as modern rail shooters go, Panzer Dragoon Orta's as good as that gets.

I pimp this every chance I get, but I highly recommend this first gen PS1 shooter called Philosoma. It's a veritable collection of homages to old shcool shooters held together by one of the most fucked up story twists in recent memory.

I have no idea if it's as great as it's Sega CD sequel (hair metal soundtrack notwithstanding), but I know the old Turbo Duo shooter Gates of Thunder is on the Virtual Console now, and its sequel was pretty great. Might be worth a look.

Nexus-7, SNK Arcade Classics volume 1 has Shock Troopers, which is a top down shooter ala Ikari Warriors in stores on April 29th. It will be available for people that have the PS2, PSP, and the Nintendo Wii. You should also look into the Capcom Classics Collections with Commando, Mercs, and many other shooters. Narc is on Midway Arcade 2. Unfortunately there is no word on any plans that SNK has for Ikari Warriors.

I loved old school Genesis/Sega CD shooters. Silpheed, Robo Aleste, Contra: Hard Corps, and so forth. What was the name of that early Genesis Contra clone that was so great? Midnight something. Midnight Express? No, that's the Turkish prison thing... Hmm.

Midnight Resistance. And yeah, that was pretty great.

Anybody remember the Rolling Thunder series? More than anything else, I remember the soundtrack being pretty amazing.

The Rolling Thunder Nintendo cartridge was jet black and aerodynamic. I know this because I recall throwing it out the window and watching it skid across the driveway. It was fun in the arcades, though.

The first one was shit on NES, but the Master System port was decent and the Genesis-exclusive second and third games were awesome

Does Jackal on the NES count as a shooter? Man, I loved that game.

Little anecdote on Ikari Warriors: one time when my friend and I popped in the game a bug occurred and the hit detection wouldn't register for our characters so we were invincible. It was the coolest thing at first but it got boring real quick.

I would need some specific suggestions for some shooters: I usually prefer when I have a shield so that I don't die the instant I'm hit. Are there any on the 360?

I had something kinda opposite of that occur when I was a kid playing Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Anyone who's anyone knows that the game isn't exactly easy (understatement). But when I was a kid my friend and I were trying to play it and it was awhile after it'd come out and the NES and cartridge were crapping out on us, so we were constantly having to blow the dust out, clang the game in off the edge, etc. We got it to work and it ended up where every single enemy only took 1 hit to be killed, while the bosses took like... 2. We took advantage of the screw-up and played all the way through and beat it. The battle with the Evil Link shadow was epic.

Shooters have always been a favorite of mine. One good thing about them is they're typically not a huge time sink. If you've only got a few minutes or a little while to play shooters are great, especially when they're well done.

The Tubo Grafx had plenty of good ones and like Justin said Gate of Thunder is on the Wii virtual Console. I picked that one up since I enjoyed it so much and I still have my original copy of the original TG-16 disc. I just wish that there was an option to increase the music volume. The soundtrack for it is really good but it totally gets drowned out by all the game noise. Lords of Thunder was a sequel almost in name only but once I got past that it was another great shooter on the system. There were others... Blazing Lazers still holds up amazingly well and it was one of the first games available on the system. Super Star Soldier and some of the other follow ups are pretty decent.

There were some pretty great shooters on the Genesis as well. Thunder Force III is a blast and has an awesome soundtrack as well but my favorite is probably Lightening Force (Thunder Force IV). I can't recall how many times I played that game all the way through. There was trick to get 99 lives and it toally made my day. Awesome game. I had an import copy of Thunder Force V on the Saturn (The US had a PS1 release), but it just wasn't the same. Still good, but Lightening Force, goofy spelling and all, was where it was at for me.

The VC on the Wii is a great place to check out a lot of old games and it just so happens that there are quite a few decent shooters on there.

Not to derail, but Zelda II was my favorite Zelda game. It seems I'm in the minority about this.

Yes. Yes you are.

That said, Zelda II's also not the shitpile many make that game out to be.

I've been trying to find a game I used to love on Nintendo for years now.. it was a war (possibly NAM/korea) game, upscrolling (progressed up the screen instead of across).. and you were a guy walking around on foot shooting the bad guys and whatnot. There were little tanks you could come across and drive until it broke, and you could also lob grenades and take things out also. I remember it not being a nitty-gritty, realistic looking game, more cartoony nintendo'ish.. but it was fun times.

I think I played it in one of those 99 in 1 cartridges, but it's been like 15 years so don't quote me on anything but the basic gameplay details. I've tried to find it via emulation for years now but no luck.

Zelda II has something about it that makes it special but had the trouble of coping with how to follow-up against a perfect game. I feel the same about Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.

May be Guerilla War, may not. It was kind of like Ikari Warriors only with a faster pace, and that helped me enjoy it more. It was an arcade game first and then an NES version came about that was still a blast to play. It stood out in my mind as a young 'un because the first boss was some dude surrounded by henchmen who was giving you the finger and laughing at you... I think the boss was the same on the NES but of course he kept his finger to himself, if I recall correctly.

Zelda II a shitpile? Who said this?

Lots of greats mentioned already. Straceski is right about the old Turbo Grafx shooters and the Thunder Force stuff.

Love Contra and its clones. Midnight Resistance was excellent on Commodore Amiga. The Metal Slugs were a lot of fun, my favorite part being the Arnold Voice ("RAAKITT LAWOONCHAA!")

R-Type rules all, though. The Turbo Grafx version of the original was best. Much respect also to R-Types Delta and Final.

Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga, as beautiful as they are, I'm not always in the mood for because sometimes I just want to switch my brain completely off, not just partially off (Gradius V on PS2 is Treasure doing a purer twitch shooter and it is awesome)

For non R-type old school, can't go wrong with the 194x stuff, handily collected together in the Capcom Classics line.

Very fond of Einhander. It's pretty much the only Square game I ever played (unless Parasite Eve counts, but I got that because I thought it was like Resi Evil. Didn't play it much after I found out it was some kind of roleplaying shit)

if Cabal and Nam 1975 on Neo Geo don't count as FPS, then I must mention them too. Love that style of shooter.

Oh, and if you want to talk badass soundtracks, I have to mention the Bitmap Brothers vertical scrolling Commodore Amiga classic Xenon II.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=E6jNosHmHG8 (recognize the tune?)

Takes me RIGHT back, that does.

That's definitely Guerrilla War. It was basically an unofficial sequel to Ikari Warriors (the official sequel was actually called Victory Road in Japan and had nothing to do with Ikari Warriors, kinda like Doki Doki Panic and Super Mario Bros), fun game.

There was a game of that style on TurboGrafx 16 that was so much fun, and to this day I can't remember what it was called. You had to rescue the President from some jungle nation, and you had to choose between two characters at the beginning of the game. And then halfway through, you save the President, but you get captured yourself and you have to take the other character (the one you didn't choose) and do a second-quest type deal, to rescue the first guy. You go through the same stages but with all new enemies and weapons. Really fun, I have no clue what it was called.

Yeah, that's Ikari Warriors II / Victory Road.

I've known more than my share of hardcore Zelda fans who regard that game like the red-headed bastard stepchild with rabies of the series, an opinion I've never held.

The aforementioned Castlevania II, on the other hand, earns that reputation several times over.

Uh-huh. And yes to answer your next question, it's backward compatible, despite the 360 fucking the game out of its best bonus feature (the original PD, fully emulated after you beat the game)

Nexus-7, Victory Road was a sequel to Ikari Warriors. Maybe SNK will release an Ikari Warriors Anthology featuring Ikari Warriors, Victory Road, and Ikari III: The Rescue.

That one was called Bloody Wolf, and yup, it was a blast. I'm pretty sure that it's another one enjoying a new life on the Virtual Console. Dangit! Now I'm gonna have to get back on my Wii and revisit my youth.

edit: Revisiting my youth is going to be expensive!!! There are too many games out there!

I was just going to mention the third one... wasn't that the one where you punch and kick your way through? It was pretty strange.

One on Playstation was another that I really liked. Mindless shooter that encouraged you to raise your "state of rage". I rated it higher than the quite similar Apocalypse (that old Bruce Willis game)

Anybody remember Loaded on PS1? God knows if it's aged well or not, but hard to argue with a premise like "Gauntlet in an insane asylum"

Wasn't there a sequel too? Re-Loaded? I may be confusing it with a Metallica album though. I played the first one and had a fun with it but don't think it made a lasting impression. I do wonder how it would seem today. If there was a second one I think I may have played it and been disappointed... or I could be imagineering my memory...

Yeah, Re-Loaded was the sequel. I remember the reviews tearing that game a fresh one, so I avoided it.

When I saw the thread title I immediately thought of geriatric versions of Klebold and Cho. That's probably not a good thing.

Here's another shooter from the TG-16/Genesis era that I had fun with. It was called AeroBLaster I believe. I had it on the Turbo Grafx and remember it being significant since it was a 2 player co-op shooter (always a good time). It was more or less the same game on the Genesis but the graphics were definitely better with more flair and layers to the paralax scrolling backgrounds and blah blah blah. Also... it was called Air Buster on the Genesis and I'm not really sure why the names were different.

(edit- talking to Justin) It was decent. Nothing special.

Help me out with this one, though- I can't remember the name of this shooter for the PS1. It was very bloody... guys keeled over with blood spurting from their hands when they were shot in the stomach, and stepping in blood resulted in bloody footprints all over. You could pick a few different characters, but the biggest thing was that it was an isometric shooter. It was one of my favorite games for the system, but I can't remember the damn name, and I'm not going to attempt to dig through my closet and find it.

Looking through some lists trying to find the name of the game I was reminded of Broken Helix. I still own that sucker. Bruce Campbell! Aliens! 4D! (Time went on no matter what you did- if you took too long, you were screwed)

That was a fun game.

Project Overkill

Has anyone played Taito's G Darius? I think it is a pretty cool shooter.

Any shooter with giant mechanical fish gets a thumbs up in my book.

While I didn't pick up any of the Darius games, I did pick up a bunch of other great Sega Saturn shooters on a recent trip to Tokyo. DoDonPachi and especially Soukyugurentai are the best of the bunch, but the Panzer Dragoon games and the Parodius collection were well worth the money too. Playing so many of these old school shooters has definitely been humbling though.

I've heard that there have been some decent shooters on XBLA lately. It'd be nice if some of the aforementioned games could be ported.

There was a damn decent underappreciated Gunstar Heroes sequel on GBA. Last I saw it, it was about $8 used at Gamestop.

It's one of the cheapest and best buys in the thread so far.

Hmm, so many... Though probably unknown by most of you, as I had a Spectrum and an Amiga, not any of the consoles.

R-Type
R-Type Final
Xenon 2
Silkworm
SWIV
Z-Out
Raiden
Commando
Warzone
Ikaruga
1942
Green Beret
.
.
.
.



The new one on the XBLA that came out yesterday isn't bad as well. Triggerheart Exelica

I got my fill of shooters back with the Genesis. Whatever skill or desire I had to play these games must've gone with the years because I absolutely suck at them now.

Heavy Barrel.

I don't think it ever got a home release, so I only played it in the arcade. It was similar (though more technologically advanced) to Ikari. You also collected the 7(?) pieces of the uber-gun.

When collected, some voice would shout "HEAVY BARREL", and you'd get like twenty seconds to vaporize everything on screen. But it was a lot of slog for those beautiful 20 seconds.

First Class 782, I had Heavy Barrel on the NES, it was quite the game as well as an arcade perfect translation.

Nothing will ever top LifeForce for me.