Fixed shooters appreciation thread

[SuperDeadite]

AMS 2 - Gyruss clone with boss fights!

[Tregard]

I have very early memories of going on holiday to a Haven caravan park back in late 80s and seeing a Galaga machine for the first time. I must have been about 4, and I remember the alien ships looking enormous as they wheeled down towards me. I don't think I could reach the controls, and I had no money to play with anyway, but the attract screen mesmerised me.

Foolishly, the few coins my mum did give me I ended up pumping into the Bionic Commando cab, buying me about 20 seconds of fun before I was annihilated. So I never did get to play Galaga. But a few years later in another arcade in another caravan park I found Super Space Invaders '91 and fell in love. I still occasionally fire that up on the PS2. It's definitely one of the best fixed shooters.

Ah but they were good times! I remember around the same time you'd see games like Stun Runner and Space Gun set up, with their elaborate cab designs, so much more advanced than anything we were playing at home, like they were from the future. Going on holiday was always a chance to see these incredible creations, and every year there would be something new that would blow you away.

Sorry... the thought of that old Galaga cab has got me hopelessly nostalgic about the old arcades.

[Doctor Butler]

Retrofit Overload for Xbox Live allows for full 8-way movement, but keeps in the spirit of a fixed-shooter.

It's a caravan shooter, with enemies that attack in formations, very much like Galaga. It also has a Mars Matrix-esque shield mechanic.

[GSK]

AMS 2 - Gyruss clone with boss fights!

This is a X68k game, right? Is there any footage anywhere?

[SuperDeadite]

AMS 2 - Gyruss clone with boss fights!

This is a X68k game, right? Is there any footage anywhere?

Correct. Currently the only publicly available dump is a bit broken. It works fine in emulators, but crashes on the real machine. Not aware of any videos, it's worth emulating though.

[Vetus]

How did I forgot to mention Cosmo Gang - The Video? One of my favourite shmups. Note that Poink Plank series had mini games based on the bonus stages from Cosmo Gang:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScE8uaVIUEU

[320x240]

Imago is a great Centipede clone:
http://youtu.be/Az5aDu9CkbY

Repulse is my favourite fixed shooter. Less based on fine aiming and more like a fixed version of a scrolling shooter. Since it was made by some Orca employees there might be a Toaplan link there.
http://youtu.be/QFkHffazD10

[system11]

I had a lovely Space Firebird cocktail, great game.

[LordHypnos]

I used to play the shit out of Galaga. I had GBA Namco museum, and also it's one you can find all over the place to this day (Well, not really all over the place, but at most bars and bowling alleys and some other places. I haven't really for a while, but it's really a fun game. Gaplus is also really good, but does it count as a fixed shooter? You can move freely around the bottom half of the screen. Haven't really played games in the series past Galaga very much, unfortunately, though I'm sure there's some good ones.

Space Invaders is legit just 'cause of how influential it is. I can't really get into it due to the harsh shot limit. Same with Galaxian too. I guess they're designed with the shot limit in mind, but I'm not a fan, still.

King and Balloon is weird, but still good, for sure.

I kind of like the way that Genetos starts with a fixed shooter. That game is pretty sweet.

I've gotta check out Space Bomber, that looks pretty sweet.

Unfortunately have not played that many, I guess. Also I bet I would have been a namco fanboy if I were alive in the early 80s.

[Vetus]

Repulse is my favourite fixed shooter. Less based on fine aiming and more like a fixed version of a scrolling shooter. Since it was made by some Orca employees there might be a Toaplan link there.
http://youtu.be/QFkHffazD10

Nice finding. For a 1985 game the graphics are quite good.

[Knockworstface]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su-qzTqhWCk

Never heard of New York, New York before.

[cave hermit]

I was a little skeptical about space bomber based off of gameplay footage (mainly my problem was with the 3d models, which had a bit of an uncanny valley feel to them), but after actually playing it today I have to say it is a really fun game! In some ways it reminds me a bit of Eschatos actually. I really like the enemy capture system, but it seems (at least as far as I can tell) that it is much more effective to just launch captured enemies as bombs instead of using their special attacks: if you deploy a captured enemy to use a special attack, it dies upon contact with an enemy bullet, and enemies the special attack hits drop small money bags worth about 500 points. On the other hand if you just launch a captured enemy as a bomb, the explosion covers a large area, enemies drop 2000 point large money bags, and you even get a secondary point bonus based on how many enemies were caught in the explosion! I don't see any reason not to just use the capture bomb.

Also the plot is truly amazing.

Alien: You My Friend. Give me Earth...
President of the United States: No!! Go to Star!!

[scavenger4]

I had a lovely Space Firebird cocktail, great game.

Yes it's an interesting evolution of Galaxian, a lot different from the direction Galaga took.

And the sound FX are bizarre (in a good way).
That's what stood out most to me about it was the sound style.

[davyK]

Being old, I was in my early teens when Space Invaders appeared in the arcades so I have a real love of STGs in general but have a soft spot for fixed shooters.

Space Invaders and Space Invaders Pt II in particular will still entertain me. Pt II is an example of a sequel that has been well done. The changes are enough to make it feel like a new game ,but not enough to ruin the experience of the original.

I like Galaga but for some reason I never came across it in the arcade that much so prefer Galaxian to it.

Loved Phoenix. The thrill of the mothership level was astounding back then. Still love that game. I also enjoyed the sequel Pleaides.

Sega's Astro Blaster is a great old game. I can remember the cabinet shaking with the bass noise it made during the asteroid section. This and Phoenix were the 1st two games I looked for when I discovered MAME. Megamania on the 2600 follows Astro Blaster's lead and it's probably why I like that game so much.

Moon Cresta got a lot of playtime but it's a fairly cruel game and is an out and out coin muncher so it tended to only get played if other machines were not available.

Carnival is also a fairly enjoyable game. The limited ammo added an element of tactics to it.

[Kaleb Parham]

That's because fixed screen shmups get to the core of why most of us play shm ups to begin with: GETTING BETTER. These games generally go on until you die.
Galaga in particular is incredibly in-depth in spite of its age. I used to be able to get to stage 45 or so before I got too tired lol. Never hit the million mark though.
Galaga Arrangement is Excellent btw (the 96 one not the psp one which is alright).
Really the galaxian series as a whole is great.

Space Invaders 91 and 95 are also stellar fixed screen shooters.

[Kaleb Parham]

And arrangement if you're going to pick one. 88 is amazing but arrangement is harder.

[GGA_HAN]

Sorry for the slightly off-topic response to this thread....

Does anyone have any advice on improving on fixed shooters in general? I'm pretty bad at all of them I've played; I've tried gyruss, galaga, space invaders, and now I'm trying to learn a bit of Galaga 88 for the mame yolyimpics tournament. It it all about memorizing where the evemy ships enter the playfield, or something else?

Thanks for any help/advice/ect!!

[1up]

I can talk about Galaga as that's the one I have the most experience with. The memorization you have to do in that game is only for the bonus stages. Knowing where the enemies come is essential to getting those perfect.

As I recall, there's 3 different ways the enemies come on screen for the normal levels and they're mostly the same. What you want to do is position yourself so that the enemy bullts track you to either side of the screen so you have an empty space to move to. This is my approach to starting a new stage:

I position my self slight to the left of the center of the screen. This way I hit the first stream of enemies coming onto the screen. Before the last enemy has settled into place at the top of the screen I will have positioned my ship all the way to the left. When the 2nd stream of enemies come on screen I start firing while moving to the right. The enemy bulllets will shot at my curent location but as I'm moving I keep moving out of harms way. Be careful not to shoot all the enemies in the wave as you make your way to the right. Killing all the enemies in the wave will initiate the next stream of enemies and you have to be all the way to the right before they enter to repeat the same trick.

your goals in Galaga are:
1. get double ships in stage 1
2. kill as many enemies as they come on screen leaving only a small amount to deal with once attack starts
3. memorizing the bonus stages

I don't know if these tactics can be used in Galaga 88 as I haven't played that much but I would imagine it's somewhat similar?

[BrianC]

It's too bad Taito always seems to port the original version of Space Invaders and ignore Part II. That latter's tweaks are minor, but make things a little more engaging without diluting that Invader purity.

At least it was in Taito Legends. There was also an odd version of it on that VG Pocket Caplet handheld (a handheld with officially licensed games and kitschy "originals").

[d0s]

I played the GB/SGB Space Invaders port a ton when I was a kid, absolutely loved it and the cabinet "emulation" modes on the SGB. Galaga was also everywhere back then and I played it whenever I saw a machine. I really wish I knew about Galaga '88/90 because I was one of the lucky few with a TG16, of course now I play it a lot on PCE and X68K, fantastic game.

[Harpuia]

If it counts, the NES version of Gyruss is pretty fantastic. Other than that, most of my experience with fixed shooters comes from Galaga and Space Invaders Extreme, that latter of which would probably be my favorite fixed shooter if I had to pick.

[Nick420]

The tekken 10th anniversary galaga game on iOS is pretty great, try that

[Obiwanshinobi]

Here's a silly question: which fixed/single screen shooters do you feel are most "epic", meaning the sense of something major going on with the game's depicted world? Or being on a journey (typical strength of background scrollers)?
I have not played many, but Space Bomber is the first that comes to mind in terms of grandeur.

[Shepardus]

Space Bomber's awesome but I'm not sure I'd use the word "grandeur" to describe it...

[Obiwanshinobi]

In Space Bomber, you battle for Earth, no less. That's quite major on my scale of tasks.

[Shepardus]

That's true, but you do that in a lot of other shmups too. I find it hard to take the gravity of the scenario seriously when the aliens are ellipsoids with duck lips that speak in Wingdings about the president's secret sex life, and try to kill you with floating cartoon dog heads, rabbit heads dropping carrot bombs, and transforming trash cans, among other things. The music doesn't exactly scream "epic scale" to me either.

[copy-paster]

Question for you guys :

Has anyone enjoyed the Space Invaders 2002/Remake version?? I played it on videogame rentals back then and it looks bizarre.

[Obiwanshinobi]

"Serious" equals neither "epic", nor "grand".

[davyK]

I can remember at university in the late 80s - in the games room there was a "Return of the Invaders" in a generic cabinet. One of the buttons let you skip a level - maybe that was a dip switch setting? Maybe it was a hack?

[d0s]

I can remember at university in the late 80s - in the games room there was a "Return of the Invaders" in a generic cabinet. One of the buttons let you skip a level - maybe that was a dip switch setting? Maybe it was a hack?

Looks like it was a dip switch setting:

http://www.solvalou.com/subpage/arcade_dips/R/retofinv