In this Day and Age, Why Play Shmups?

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dpful wrote;

Playing shmups because they are an analogy for the primal condition. Kill or be killed, inevitible death, see how far you can get.

Hmm...I like that one.

BulletMagnet wrote:
I

guess it's more or less a summary of what a lot of others have said (and perhaps a repetition, if I missed it), but for me, in a nutshell, shmups are one of the few genres which still has, to a good extent, the same sort of charm that video games "as a whole" had long ago, and have largely lost since then. Basically, a lot of other genres have been striving to transform themselves into "an experience," or "a spectacle" or some such thing - shmups, such as it is, are still nothing more than video games, and aren't trying to hide that fact, and that's why I find myself drawn to them.

^Ditto.
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Other than that, I would only repeat what others have written:-

Adrenaline.

Challenge - score - completion.

[SteevTee]

...what is it that compels you to the genre when there is so much else out there to play?

Because blowing stuff up with cool looking fighter planes, OTT weapons and creating general carnage is fun.

[Ed Oscuro]

I am completely burned out on FPSes right now (well, ones that aren't STALKER).

Gradius Galaxies would be a different sort of challenge, definitely.

[TWITCHDOCTOR]

Thats like asking someone who likes golf why they like it...
Y'know, there are lots of other sports, but why golf?
Well, because I like it. Its simple really.

All that aside, I enjoy other genre's of games as well.
Old school and newer stuff, but my preferance lies with the 16-bit era.
I can play Grand Theft Auto San Andreas for hours, and yet still come back to Dracula X.
Oh, and lets forget Gradius!!! The list goes on and on.

[HardcoreOtaku]

I would say the 2D Shoot-em-up is video gaming in its purist form

I get the best gaming buzz from playing a decent hechtic 2D shooter, dodging insane amounts of bullets, epic big bosses, big explosions, what more could you want out of life??

[the2bears]

For me it's because it's the only (or one of only a few) genre left that doesn't strive for "reality", through ultra-high polycount realism etc. It's true to its own nature, being that of a game and an escape from reality.

I love shmups because you have certain restrictions in gameplay but from those boundaries it's pretty incredible the innovation and ideas that can spring forth.

And, I'd be dishonest if I didn't mention that due to my age I don't think my brain handles 3D all that well I was trained in 2D and that's my limit.

Bill

[FatCobra]

I love shmups because I get to blow stuff up and I like trying to beat my high score.

[Nuke]

Why do anything at anytime?

[dpful]

Also, about being in the "zone".

It's to achive a meditative state, as defined as "percieving fewer things than usual, but in greater detail then usual"

That's how you can guess where all those bullets are coming from when there's too many ships to watch.

[PROMETHEUS]

Because regardless of how out fashioned the genre is, there is skill involved in playing it so it remains interesting.

[Frederik]

I used to think it´s the score-based easy-to-learn-but-hard-to-master kind of game, but then I remembered what drew me into the genre in the first place:

The raw fascination of complex bullet patterns and the will to survive them. ROAARRR! Seriously, when I saw footage of Ikaruga, Psyvariar and DDP I KNEW that this is the perfect genre for me.

Relating to what Sonic R said - I am kind of re-discovering the survival in shmups as opposed to score-driven playstyle, which really drags me back to a number of games I discarded because I found the score systems too difficult (Bakraid, ESPRade).

[Pirate1019]

I play shooters because they are straightforward. Your goal in the game is clearly defined: Beat the game with as many lives and as high a score as possible.

They also aren't watered down with too much attention given to presentation. It's all about the gameplay. The gameplay is tight and precise.

Also, your progress and achievements in a shmup is clearly defined by numbers. Your score. So few games these days have 'score'. About the closest thing is number the of kills in a first person shooter.

[shoe-sama]

Because it's pretty badass to dodge hoards of bullets and look cool while doing it.

And there's different types of shmups to cater to different groups. And old school shmup has more emphasis on strategy and memorization, manic on reflexes etc.

Also replay value.

And it takes quite a bit of play time to 1cc most shmups or reach some other goal anyways.

[Veracity]

'Gameplay' is an evil non-word that should be banned for absurd non-specificity. Never mind, that, though. I think it's a bit of a fallacy that they waste much less time overall than other genres, but shooting games don't generally inflict too much dead time through filler content (stage one blues notwithstanding), and rarely require hefty chunks of time to deliver a satisfactory play session. 2-d controls give them a degree of interface clarity I think few to no 3-d action games have managed to match. One-hit player death, common if by no means universal, has a similar precision-derived appeal.

I rather take issue with 'in this day and age', though. There seems to be an assumption that the genre's inherently retro, which I don't think is the case. I guess it's mostly a result of the fact these games used to be so ubiquitous, but are now mostly the preserve of a handful of grouchy nerds.

The non-simulation aspect is possibly the most interesting, imo. I wouldn't want to pinpoint quite when this became specifically part of the appeal - it certainly is, now, as the 2-d scrolly conventions are adopted by choice, but the very early games that used them were, I think, as much concerned with simulation as is any modern FPS.

[Edge]

I have always been an "alround" gamer. (whatever that is anyway)
So basically I have been trying to play many different games of any styles, the obscure and the mainstream ones. And for many years I have been really enjoying doing this. But unfortunatelly in more reccent years I have lost more and more interest in most main stream games. Because I simply couldn't enjoy them anymore. They were simply too time consuming and ... boring... because of all that filler content in them. 50 hours of always killing the same enemies in a FPS (single player mode!), 100 of hours of doing the same stuff in a japanese RPGs and don't get me started on the quests of MMORPGs. Simply the whole "play for 100s of hours to collect everything" philosophy is something that absolutely turned me off many modern games. I wanna enjoy ALL the time I am playing the game. I want to put it in and instantly get emerged, no unneccessary tutorial levels and endless stretched levels with just the same repeating structure just to let the game last longer.

While one may think that shmups and other "classic" genres (as called above) are just as repititve. They may actually really be repititve in some way, so repititve is not really the right word to use here. Hmmm... I am just talking about a general interesting and exciting gaming experience. Like chess is repititve because you always have the same pieces and moving rules, but yet you have to be careful on each game.

And for me, shmups is one of those genres which still provides enough of a challenge and a burst of pure gameplay to keep me coming back and interested in a long term. Also some other arcade style games or multiplayer games.

But if you wanna "try" to sum up why people play shmups while they could play so much else cough, garbage... . Though I do understand that what is "fun" is different for every person. And so some people find WOW fun to play, which is for me beyond any understanding at all! But that is just my point of view, I realize that those people probably enjoy what they are doing. So, I am just asking you to, please, not write something like people find it cool to be retro, or people like to collect, or people which are immersed into a certain community like shmups. The people playing shmups do that because they simply enjoy the gameplay shmups offers to them. As weird as it may seem to someone who doesn't like these games. It kinda sums up to that you can pick up and play it for a few minutes, but come back to master it. And the process of mastering is a FUN challenge to them. Many on here would still play shmups without the community too.

[MX7]

Because they look really cool, and, in terms of authourship, can be ascribed to a small group of individuals. I'm a sucker for artistry and the concept of the auteur. The thing that gives me the biggest buzz with Ikaruga is the fact that the core dev team behind it consisted of only 4 people. A Bout de Souffle as oposed to Final Fantasy's Lord of the Rings.

edit:

And of course for the community, who as a whole tend to be very mature but also completely unpretencious. This is the only games forum I post on, dispite loving a variety of games, but other than this, it's a choice between illiterate 12 year olds on gamefaqs, or the elitist beard strokers on The Gamers Corner (although they do make a rather fine quaterly journal).

[Geezer]

-"Old school" challenge
-Short length
-Lots of replayability
-Plenty of scope to improve both scoring and progression

[J-Manic]

I stay playing shmups for the simple, yet adrenaline-rushing, gameplay. Not to mention all the eye-candy visuals in most that are very rewarding, in my opinion. Plus, they help to sharpen my eye and hand coordination. So much more than any next gen. game I've played so far.

[roker]

I play them because my TV only works when it's on it's side

[Rob]

Because it's pretty badass to dodge hoards of bullets and look cool while doing it.

And there's different types of shmups to cater to different groups. And old school shmup has more emphasis on strategy and memorization, manic on reflexes etc.

I agree with the first line.

In that last line I would remove the words "strategy and" and place them before reflexes.