How long have you been playing shmups?

[Ozymandiaz1260]

About six months. I've played shmups earlier than that, like I played Kiloblaster and Raptor on the PC when I was younger, but I've only recently really gotten into them.

[DBH87]

1.been playing shooters for about 2 years.

2. like all types of games especially adventure ones of high quality eg ninja gaiden, god of war

3. suck at most shooters

[Shatterhand]

Goddamn.. gotta be.. 20 years now...

I've been a gamer since I can remember being alive... and shmups had ALWAYS been my fav genre...

Time goes by fast....


I am not that good either, guess I fall in "average", so I don't think my tips wll help too much. Undoubtly, sticking to the same game for a while helps a lot, while watching videos have helped me sometimes, while in others didn't make any difference (It made an effect more of "Ah shit, I just can't do it" )

[auryn]

since Xenon on the Amiga, almost 20 yrs ago, though there have been pauses when I didn't play any games at all for years

[stuminator]

1. I've played shmups off and on for the last 25 years, though I've only really gotten into them about a year ago.

2. I usually have about 3-4 games that I bounce back and forth between at any time. Whenever I feel I'm getting frustrated with a game I take a break from it for a few days and play something else.

3. I haven't played Strikers 1999 but I have played the first two. One thing that really helped me learn the games was to allot myself a few credits for learning the later stages. Trying to 1CC your way through the whole game when you have little knowledge of the later stages is torture. I find learning many games to be a lot easier if you give yourself a few extra credits if there's a stage that's giving you lots of problems.

[BIL]

1. How long have you been shmupping?

Only about two years. Although I've been a huge fan of action gaming since the NES, I never played shooters very seriously until Gradius V in 2005.

I remember being almost afraid to buy it, since I assumed it would murder me (EGM review: "Good luck finishing without free play"). Luckily I bought it and was given a great re-introduction to the genre. Shooters have been my favourite genre since. Being unable to play imports means I've yet to play many of the ones I own, but emulation has been a huge help.

2. Did you concentrate on one game, and those skills leaked to the other games? Or did you tackle several at once to 1cc?

I tend to play no more than two games at once, allowing myself two continues. Usually if I can 2CC a game, I'm happy enough to put it down and move on (ESPRade and Salamander 2 are currently 2CCs, Metal Black recently went down).

I'm still new, but I definitely noticed a point in Gradius V (ST6 Last Boss) where suddenly I could visualise and move around gaps in bullet swarms. Before, that boss's bullet spam attack had just seemed like a wall of death to me. Although it's a vert, I think ESPRade wouldn't even have been 2CCable for me if I'd played it prior to that.

3. Is there anything I can do training wise to get better and to get closer to 1ccing, or at least 1ccing the 1st loop of Strikers 1999?

At this point I'm frequently wondering the same things myself.

[pixelcorps]

scrolling shooters? since '82 when xevious came out.

arcade gaming? since 1979!

[neorichieb1971]

I think my first shooter was Space invaders on the Atari console in 1978-1979.

I played the arcade game Astro blaster, Moon cresta, Pheonix, Scramble and maybe a couple more.

Then youd have to skip about ten years to Xenon 2, Hybris, SWIV.

I didn't play consoles until 94, and I did not buy any shmups for them until 2000+. I think the reason being I was getting a tad tired of the 3D hype machine. Then I found the Xenofiles on shmups.com through google, went to the forum and found out all about Cave, Psikyo and so forth. Then I went on a spending frenzy.

Shooters to me are by default an expression of personality, art and skill. A simple design mechanism on the surface demands thinking speed at an unparalelled rate. An understanding that can be as shallow or in so much depth it will put any modern designed game to shame. That is why today, we exist as a collective of purists looking for perfection in our gameplay world. Shooters teach us the art of survival, and then some.

[system11]

Folks who have been around the forums here at Shmups since the beginning

<muffled>RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!</muffled>

Certainly a blast from the past!

[PC Engine Fan X!]

1. How long have you been shmupping?

2. Did you concentrate on one game, and those skills leaked to the other games? Or did you tackle several at once to 1cc?

3. Is there anything I can do training wise to get better and to get closer to 1ccing, or at least 1ccing the 1st loop of Strikers 1999?

1) About 26 years.
2) I just play to enjoy, there are very few games I've 1cc'd. Want to know a secret? People who /do/ 1cc modern games are the exception, not the rule. When you watch a replay, it's usually from someone in the higher skill brackets.
3) Natural ability (reactions, motor skills) and practise. Very few games have a random element now, so you can just perfect a section, memorise it, and parrot it back each run. Personally, I have a really shitty memory, and prefer reaction based play.

Try 1CC a gaming session of Klax PCB...yes, I've done it myself but there wasn't anyone around to witness what I had done on that eventful day (except for the tell-tale signs on the Klax high score board, especially the "Score Average per Credit" listing) -- a Klax ace master will tell you that all the colored tiles are randomly generated (meaning there's no set pattern). You have to make do with the tiles given to you. A cool head and faster hand-eye reaction to the tiles coming down the conveyor belt and keeping track of what you are actually doing is a really big task in itself. "Multi-tasking" would be a better description of playing a serious gaming session of Klax... ^_~

The very last wave, Wave 100, is a challenge unto itself with the only requirement of scoring a minimum of 250,000 points. How does one do that and what methods are used to score that minimum (or higher) is really up to the player to decide how to best approach that particular goal. Of course, if one does get the minimum required score, the Klax CPU does reward the player with a cool but hard-earned extra 1,000,000 point bonus to his or her overall score... ^_~

Remember the old adage: Buy low and sell high? That applies to the Klax game as well -- so it's possible to get a serious score of 2,000,000+ points upon finishing Wave 7 or Wave 8 using certain perfected "tile setups to score big points" methodology. Of course, the odds are going to be against you with the "randomness" of the colored tile factor -- (something to keep in mind). The old saying rings true: Practice makes perfect (this would apply to the shmup genre or any other genre for that matter)..... ^_~

Suppose if Atari Games had created a sequel to Klax...how much better would it be (compared to the original)?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[the2bears]

Since you could put a quarter in a Space Invaders machine... though some of you may not consider it a shmup, certainly the pre-cursor.

Bill

[TVG]

1. How long have you been shmupping?

2. Did you concentrate on one game, and those skills leaked to the other games? Or did you tackle several at once to 1cc?

3. Is there anything I can do training wise to get better and to get closer to 1ccing, or at least 1ccing the 1st loop of Strikers 1999?

1) Since R-type on sega master system, which makes it around 91 or something. Stopped playing shooters as i stopped playing videogames around 95 when the 32 bit era started. Discovered blazing star then raiden fighters in the arcades around 99 and was hooked. Then bought gigawing and a dreamcast after reading a review. Haven't really stopped since, even tho i have my shooter periods, for example i didn't play a single one in the past year, now coming back to it for some mushi PS2.
Currently learning c++, if i ever manage to become decent i'll try to make a little shooter.

2) Often i focus on one "main" game i try to improve in with a few quickplays on everything else just for kicks, i can't really play one single shooter all the time unless it's the only one i own or something.

3) Pratice, don't get discouraged, relax, experiment, enjoy.

[Klatrymadon]

I guess I started gaming in earnest when I was about 3, and I'm 21 now. You do the math, as they* say in the states!

I guess I do hop around from game to game a lot, but I do try to keep it down to about five at a time. They all get the time they deserve, eventually.

*Particularly noisome twats.