I think you have to show people accessible shooters first, and not crazy bullet hell games. This is getting harder because most accessable shooters (like Thunderforce 3 or the Compile games) are getting to be just downright ancient. For example, Zero Gunner 2's been a hit with my non-gamer friends because it has both a gentle difficulty curve, you don't need to explain the rules too much, works well with two players, and has nice graphics.
It's easy to sell modern gamers short because of the huge amount of popular games whose sole purpose is to take up a lot of time telling a story. But racing games and FPS deathmatch games are actually demanding and can require the repitition and practice of a shmup...
And no, man, it's not Raptor
Edit: And don't bother at an ACM lan party (we ended up with Worms 3d that night)
Last edited by louisg on Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
A few of my mates are big Super Metroid fans like myself, so I've never had any trouble getting them to play shmups as they tend to trust my opinion, and they still support 2D gaming in a cursory way. They don't tend to stick at 'em, though - one of my chums decided Gradius V was too much for him when he reached level 4.
Of course, it's nowhere near "too much" for anybody, but you can't force these things on people...
It was a similar story with R-Type Final, even though he was one of the few who really liked that instalment. My flatmates-to-be are apparently PES fanatics, so I'll definitely try to shake things up a bit for 'em with some DOJ!
Almost all my friends don't mind playing shmups, because we're all in our mid/late 20's (I'm 23.) So we don't mind playing a good shmup every now and then, I have a Japanese friend who picked up Mushihimesama mad fast, I was surprised, and my other friends always want to play a shmup or two before playing a fighting game. I'm not a 100% dedicated shump fan, but you can call me a game fan of all genres, and shmups just happen to be some of my favorite genre's besides fighting, action adventure, RPG and Racing.
My brother would be the only one who has played any of my Cave games with some kind of skill. With him, it basically comes down to this: If it isn't 3D, he isn't interested.
Yaul: An awesome open source SEGA Saturn software development kit
about a week ago I got my GF and her cute Cambodian friend to play some Saturn shooters. First was BG but they didn't really get into that but then came Batsugun which they really got into. Best of as, because of the credit limit they decided to keep playing it over and over again until they noticed themselves improving. It was cool that they realized that credit feeding is bad and that imporving your skill is what it's all about.
most of my other guy gamer friends quickly fall into the credit feeding syndrome, even ones that own a couple shmups
The TV in tate position gets people interested fer sure!!
Fighter17 wrote:To really make people play shmups, pop in Parodius.
But I think that would scared away people would it?
One of my aforementioned friends actually had a really good time with (if not the gameplay, then the presentation) of Gokujo Parodius when I first showed it to him...he's just the type to appreciate that sort of thing though, heh heh.
Standard conversation as mates walk into my house:
Hey got any games?
Hey... your TV is on it's side
Wow, you got a lot of arcade machines!
Man this game is way old, it's not even 3D!
Wow... that's a lot of bullets
Gimme a go, that looks easy
Holy crap this is hard
This game sucks, I can't make it off level 1 on a single credit. Who would honestly ever be good enough to play this???
Dude, get with the 21st century and buy something modern that a normal person can play.
* Friend leaves games room in frustration *
elvis wrote:Standard conversation as mates walk into my house:
Hey got any games?
Hey... your TV is on it's side
Wow, you got a lot of arcade machines!
Man this game is way old, it's not even 3D!
Wow... that's a lot of bullets
Gimme a go, that looks easy
Holy crap this is hard
This game sucks, I can't make it off level 1 on a single credit. Who would honestly ever be good enough to play this???
Dude, get with the 21st century and buy something modern that a normal person can play.
* Friend leaves games room in frustration *
My standard response:
"Skill up, or die".
I tend to get embarassed in those situations.
Similar enough to watching the expression on somebody's face when they see a remote mine flying into their face in Goldeneye multiplayer...
I had a hard time getting friends to play shmups. Not only that, they think they're better than me at it.
???: I bet you I'm better than you at this.
Khoa: 'Kay.
???: Alright, so what's the shield button?
Khoa: There is none.
???: ....Then... how the fuck did you go through all those bullets?!
Khoa: ...
???: ...
louisg wrote:I think you have to show people accessible shooters first, and not crazy bullet hell games. This is getting harder because most accessable shooters (like Thunderforce 3 or the Compile games) are getting to be just downright ancient. For example, Zero Gunner 2's been a hit with my non-gamer friends because it has both a gentle difficulty curve, you don't need to explain the rules too much, works well with two players, and has nice graphics.
Under Defeat is another good one. Not too difficult, very easy on the eyes. And it's a war shooter, which "normal" people are more likely to enjoy, over say a fantasy or sci-fi.
I was playing mushihimesama on my ps2, arrange mode got to Last Boss, my brother was just dropping eyes at the patterns 5 mins later got to TLB and brother's eyes just exploded though i died on half of the fight
The most annoying thing about encouraging people to play 2D games/ shmups is when magazines saying they all look the same or it was easy cos it's got infinite continues and all the other shit. Get someone who plays shooters to review it or don't bother. Just like what would be the point of getting someone who mainly plays shmups to review the lastest MMORPG (or whatever it's called) armor downloads.
You can't/ shouldn't force people to like what you like but if mags put 2D games in a negative light new people are less likely to give them a go.
We can go the obvious route and benefit from their criticism by taking their advice. Credit feeding ruins shmups for noobs, cutting off the genre's potential fresh blood.
Most of my friends enjoy shmups casually when they come over, although mostly in a pissing contest fashion.
"Oh, man, I bet we'll never beat pirate1019, but I'll whoop your ass at this game!"
It's almost amusing watching two kids fighting over who has a better score in ikaruga when neither of them can get to the first boss.
I do have one friend though. He's on this forum, thenoble1, he doesn't post much, but I totally hooked him. He saw me playing Warning Forever in Computer Science and was practically drooling all over my shoulder. That night I signed on AIM and I was on a grand total of 3 seconds before he demanded to know the name of the game I was playing. It all fell apart from there. He got every freeware shmup I had and played them. Them he downloaded a massive MAME shmup torrent and played those. As soon as his xbox was modded MAME was the first thing he put on it. Now, after getting withdrawls after playing DOJ at my house, he's getting a swapdisc so he can get to importing all of the games I'm getting. He took to them like no other.
...And I have another friend who buys them just because they are generally pretty valuable. He snatched up copies of Ikaruga and Under Defeat and is working on getting Border Down. I keep trying to get him to actually play them, but he seems to only pretend to take interest since me and Eric (thenoble1) are so into them.
Pirate1019 wrote:
...And I have another friend who buys them just because they are generally pretty valuable. He snatched up copies of Ikaruga and Under Defeat and is working on getting Border Down. I keep trying to get him to actually play them, but he seems to only pretend to take interest since me and Eric (thenoble1) are so into them.
:shameful:
No offence to your friend, Pirate, but its people like this that make prices out of reach to the folks who want to play the games. One of my mates, who seldom posts here, can't have at Border Down because the price is too restrictive. He passed on it a few years ago becasue times were hard and cash was tight but now is doing better but hording collectors who don't even play the bloody games have snatched up the game and made it less accesible to good folks who really want to get their use out of the games.
How come shooties have such high prices and demand yet the genre is looked down upon and new titles are few and far between? I'd be happy if every title like Border Down or Radiant Silvergun were only worth $0.25 that way the people who want them get them and have the chance to enjoy.
SFKhoa wrote:I had a hard time getting friends to play shmups. Not only that, they think they're better than me at it.
???: I bet you I'm better than you at this.
Khoa: 'Kay.
???: Alright, so what's the shield button?
Khoa: There is none.
???: ....Then... how the fuck did you go through all those bullets?!
Khoa: ...
???: ...
Ha ha, this is all too familliar.
I had to borrow a PS2 of an idiot who lives with me in order to play Gadius V a while back. I was on level 4 on very hard, the boulder hell level. He stood there open mouthed, and after a while asked how many hits you could take before you die. "one, obviously", I muttered. "then it must be really easy" he replied. So I handed him the pad, whereupon he lost about 3 credits in 30 secs. Wha ha ha ha ha ha...
My friends only like shmups with a lot of beer. It's funny to see them playing a 2 player game on my cab and don't even notice one of them is game over. They just keep button mashing.
Dennis wrote:My friends only like shmups with a lot of beer. It's funny to see them playing a 2 player game on my cab and don't even notice one of them is game over. They just keep button mashing.
That's exactly what happens when people play on my cab. I usually ask myself: Why on earth are they button smashing when there is a turbo button?
To prevent any damage to my buttons or joysticks, I usually show them how to play first. One of my younger cousins went a little crazy with EspGaluda II and pulled the joystick up as hard as he could!!! It was like a kick to the balls!
That's $130+ for the control panel down the drain!!! Ahhh!!
Has anyone experienced anyone literally beating their cab up?
Yaul: An awesome open source SEGA Saturn software development kit
I wouldn't want to play with anyone else. Especially for Cave shooters.
shmups is a largely one player experience. Playing it two player is just...not fun. It can get messy.
Pirate1019 wrote:
...And I have another friend who buys them just because they are generally pretty valuable. He snatched up copies of Ikaruga and Under Defeat and is working on getting Border Down. I keep trying to get him to actually play them, but he seems to only pretend to take interest since me and Eric (thenoble1) are so into them.
:shameful:
That's why I said I try to get him to play them. He's the kind of kid who blows through games like nothing. He would really appreciate them if he gave them more then a first glance. It saddens me that he can afford a Dreamcast + expensive games while I am playing Ikaruga on the GC. About all the use they get is when I go over I play them while he works on one Xbox mod or another.
To his credit though, he bought a factory sealed Ikaruga and made the smart decision to Download the .iso to make a backup for actual playing.
shinsage wrote:shmups is a largely one player experience.
Yeah, it doesn't really bother me that none of my friends play shmups. It'd be cool if they did, but even then I'd mostly play alone. I did enjoy the Michigan shmupmeet though.
But there have been a few times when I've been really into a game and had nobody to play against, which sucked (Virtual On, Puyo Puyo).
I don't really have a hard time getting friends to play shooters...but I do have a hard time getting them to buy the really good ones. Some of them know Ikaruga, but I'm talking about DDPDOJ, Ibara, ESPGaluda, Mars Matrix, Giga Wing 2, and stuff like that. Most of the shooters they play are 1-Player, and the ones that are 2-Players we've literally played until we got sick. It's good to see that the US is getting Raiden III, though. I wonder if Homura would ever make it to the US? No way...
