Shmups in VR

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MachineAres 1CC
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Shmups in VR

Post by MachineAres 1CC »

I've personally been on the VR train for a few years and just upgraded to a new Oculus Quest 2, which allows you to play just about any VR game from Steam or the Oculus store, regardless of which headset it was designed for. This opened up the possibilities of what software was available by thousands of titles, and while a lot of VR titles are just derivative trash, there are some gems out there.

I've had the PSVR for a long time, but PC VR is far more advanced and has much more software across the board, but for whatever reason, I had just come up with the idea to see if there was any devs trying to do something interesting with the shmup/scroller formula in a VR capacity, and turned up a few interesting results lately.

Wondering if anyone has checked these out or would be interested, but here's what I've found so far:


1976 - Back to Midway
A 194X-inspired shmup that plays like Joint Strike with some elements from Sky Force Anniversary but also has optional first-person cockpit mini-stages within each stage. Quite fun even if a little grindy.

Arcadia
A Galaga clone in VR. That's pretty much it. Ship shoots faster than Galaga and you're playing in a virtual space that looks pretty cool. Only $1

Arcade 80 VR Space Attack
Yet another Galaga clone in VR. More expensive and not as good as Arcadia.

Anceder
An overhead view vertical scrolling 3D shmup. Plays pretty well, and is free to try, but has microtransactions to unlock more levels, etc.

Minotaur Arcade
A collection of two arcade-style VR games from Jeff Minter's studio (Tempest/Space Giraffe,) one being a grid-based multi-directional shooter, like a hybrid of Galaga Legions/Geometry Wars/Tempest all rolled into one. Also only a few bucks.

Nightstar: Starfighter
A forward-scrolling 3D space shooter. You use your ship as the gun and also dodge with it. Gets overly hard to see the bullets kinda quickly but is fun to try.

SIVR Space Invaders
Essentially just playing Space Invaders in a 3D space. The Virtual Boy Space Invaders actually did this like 20 years before and is official.

TwinForce
2D vertical scroller in 3D space. Basically aims to be a clone of Vertical Force from Virtual Boy but with Space Invaders/retro aesthetics, where there's two planes of height to switch between and enemies can switch between both.

Xion
A forward-scrolling voxel art shmup where you control the ship with your hand, almost like a gun, but you have to dodge and shoot with that hand while using the other hand to pick up items. Very unique concept and plays pretty well, but frustratingly difficult as well.

Virtual Boy Emulator (Vertical Force, Space Invaders)
I found a Virtual Boy emulator for my headset which plays both of these games in full VR without the pain of the Virtual Boy being on your face. Both of them are actually rather enjoyable, especially Vertical Force.

Other:
Vektron Revenge (Twin stick)
BlasterCell (Twin stick)
Max VR (First-person arena shooter, SI themed)
Nebula Nemesis (Cockpit SI)
Space-Bit Attack (Cockpit SI)
Sega MegaDrive/Genesis Classics (Bio Hazard Battle & Space Harrier 2 are official, but you can hack in any other Shmup ROMs if desired, plays in a sort of "big screen theater" VR mode)

Let me know if you've messed with any of these or know of any others I haven't found
Last edited by MachineAres 1CC on Sat Jan 02, 2021 9:24 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Verticen
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by Verticen »

Omeganaut is a starfox esque shooter that has VR support.
https://txori.itch.io/omeganaut

Also, Steel Empire for 3DS is not vr, but is 3D. It's also deserving of a little more love, it plays pretty tight at harder difficulties and I actually enjoyed what they did with the 3d.

I really would like to see a legit stg with vr support, or at least with polarity 3d options.
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by MachineAres 1CC »

Verticen wrote:Omeganaut is a starfox esque shooter that has VR support.
https://txori.itch.io/omeganaut
Oh, that's pretty neat. I don't consider StarFox a shmup very much, but it's cool the dev is trying out VR. That also reminds me that I forgot to search on itch.io, I need to do that soon!
Also, Steel Empire for 3DS is not vr, but is 3D. It's also deserving of a little more love, it plays pretty tight at harder difficulties and I actually enjoyed what they did with the 3d.
Ah, yeah, 3D isn't quite the same as VR, but 3DS actually had quite a few great shmups that ran in 3D, including Nano Assault, Twinbee, all the Fantasy Zone games, Xevious, Space Harriers, After Burner 2, Thunder Force 3, Galaxy Force 2, and Thunder Blade, if you haven't checked those out. Steel Empire is also rad and this reminded me I never got to try the 3DS version even though I have it installed
I really would like to see a legit stg with vr support
I think 1976 and Vertical Force are the closest to a "legit" shmup I've found with VR support so far. Try to check those out if you have a headset besides PSVR
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by dmk1198 »

I've just realised PS4 game creator tool Dreams is Psvr compatible
It's got tons of great shmups
So must have loads in VR to..
Will investigate

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MachineAres 1CC
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by MachineAres 1CC »

dmk1198 wrote:I've just realised PS4 game creator tool Dreams is Psvr compatible
It's got tons of great shmups
So must have loads in VR to..
Will investigate
I just checked this out and Dreams is only VR compatible if the creator makes the game support VR, and after doing some searches, it seems none of the real shmup games on there actually support VR. It would be cool if they did, but it doesn't seem like anyone really wanted to make their shmup game support VR.
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by dmk1198 »

MachineAres 1CC wrote:
dmk1198 wrote:I've just realised PS4 game creator tool Dreams is Psvr compatible
It's got tons of great shmups
So must have loads in VR to..
Will investigate
I just checked this out and Dreams is only VR compatible if the creator makes the game support VR, and after doing some searches, it seems none of the real shmup games on there actually support VR. It would be cool if they did, but it doesn't seem like anyone really wanted to make their shmup game support VR.
Oh man that's a shame

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CricketyJimit
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by CricketyJimit »

Horizon Vanguard (on itch.io and Steam) is really good, quite difficult as well - you use your left controller's analogue stick for your hoverbike which has shmup style 8 way movement while using your right controller to aim and fire your gun like Virtua Cop. It has bullet hell sections where you can also see the patterns from a top down view on a small screen between your handlebars.

Moose Life and Polybius on Steam are some other great Jeff Minter VR shmups. Polybius plays a bit more like a racing game I guess, but it has....cows and space invaders, weird sound effects and voice samples, psychedelic visuals - I think it's one of the coolest games to play or to show someone that's new to VR.
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by MachineAres 1CC »

CricketyJimit wrote:Horizon Vanguard (on itch.io and Steam) is really good, quite difficult as well - you use your left controller's analogue stick for your hoverbike which has shmup style 8 way movement while using your right controller to aim and fire your gun like Virtua Cop. It has bullet hell sections where you can also see the patterns from a top down view on a small screen between your handlebars.

Moose Life and Polybius on Steam are some other great Jeff Minter VR shmups. Polybius plays a bit more like a racing game I guess, but it has....cows and space invaders, weird sound effects and voice samples, psychedelic visuals - I think it's one of the coolest games to play or to show someone that's new to VR.
I think I saw Horizon Vanguard when looking through stuff and it didn't call my attention, but I'll give it another look. Will also check out the other Minter stuff, I don't think I saw them when searching before. Thanks!
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dmk1198
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by dmk1198 »

Yes Jeff minter is great
I really like mobius
Did he do tempest? Luv that to

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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by PC Engine Fan X! »

dmk1198 wrote:Yes Jeff minter is great
I really like mobius
Did he do tempest? Luv that to

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Yep, Jeff Minter did Tempest 2000 that made it's grand debut in March of 1994 on the Atari Jaguar console. It even has built-in support for a rotary knob spinner controller setup (even better imho).

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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

Yep, Jeff Minter did Tempest 2000 that made it's grand debut in March of 1994 on the Atari Jaguar console.

Just as a complete side topic: You can sort of play Tempest 2000 on the PC as an official/unofficial clone was released called Typhoon 2001 (technically unofficial, although Minter gave it his blessing). It's still really good
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by Marc »

I've erally enjoyed Minter's stuff on PS4 - Polybius and Moose Life and Gridrunner. They look like how I'd have imagined the future of arcade games to be as a kid,
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by m.sniffles.esq »

They look like how I'd have imagined the future of arcade games to be as a kid

That's a great way of putting it.

Minter's a odd cat. People sort of forget this, but Tempest 2k was huge. It was the Jaguar's killer app (it's biggest selling game) and sold consoles (I know three people personally that bought Jaguars just for Tempest 2k). Yet, he parlayed his success into... nothing really. I mean, the only thing he really did throughout the '90s was Defender 2k and port Tempest 2k (and I guess some stuff for the pocket pc)

I've still yet to play his "traditional" vert shmup: Super Ox Wars, due to my lack of an 'i' anything.
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Re: Shmups in VR

Post by Firehawke »

Yeah, Tempest 2000 would be literally the only reason I'd buy a Jaguar.

That said, there's another VR-friendly shmup on PS4 called Hyper Void. It's actually pretty decent and it was one of the PS+ giveaways at one point.
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