I've been thinking a lot lately about how to approach arena shooters, and I found out this is probably the grayest area in shmups as far as borderliners go.
So I have a few questions regarding this subgenre, for which I'd like to read opinions:
1. In which way is a game like Mercs different from Granada? The latter is regarded by most people as a shmup, but the first one isn't.
2. Smash TV is a fixed arena shooter with different screens tossed in. The sequel Total Carnage is a mix of fixed and scrolling action. Do you see them as shmups?
3. Has anybody ever made or bumped into a full list of this type of shooters?
Full list of arena shooters??....
Re: Full list of arena shooters??....
BitFighter or Zap! might qualify as "arena shooters". They're essentially the same game except Zap! plays in your browser. They have different game modes too and you can play with other people as well as bots.
http://bitfighter.org/
http://blog.instantaction.com/zap/
I've never seen too many people on bitfighter, but it seems like itd be a blast to play online!
http://bitfighter.org/
http://blog.instantaction.com/zap/
I've never seen too many people on bitfighter, but it seems like itd be a blast to play online!
Re: Full list of arena shooters??....
Check out my sig.
It's by no means complete and the current version in that thread is very old. I'm still working on it, and it's getting very involved. Not all of them are "arena shooters", but I'm going to define all my categories and methodologies at a later time when it's finished. Currently going through every arcade game that shares the similar mechanics in a giant word document. It's over 130 pages currently.
With as much work as I'm putting into this I'm completely looking into making a book out of it. Not sure if anyone would be interested, but I'm looking into it.
I'd republish the spreadsheet into something updated, but it's still in some deep editting. I don't want to republish until it's finished. Needless to say there's far more of these games than people usually know. There may be nearly as many of them as there are shmups.
If anyone has any input or questions, feel free to poke me. I have no clue why I'm doing this, but I feel the need to. Someone needs to accumulate this information. It's already taken hundreds of hours of my life.
It's by no means complete and the current version in that thread is very old. I'm still working on it, and it's getting very involved. Not all of them are "arena shooters", but I'm going to define all my categories and methodologies at a later time when it's finished. Currently going through every arcade game that shares the similar mechanics in a giant word document. It's over 130 pages currently.
With as much work as I'm putting into this I'm completely looking into making a book out of it. Not sure if anyone would be interested, but I'm looking into it.
I'd republish the spreadsheet into something updated, but it's still in some deep editting. I don't want to republish until it's finished. Needless to say there's far more of these games than people usually know. There may be nearly as many of them as there are shmups.
If anyone has any input or questions, feel free to poke me. I have no clue why I'm doing this, but I feel the need to. Someone needs to accumulate this information. It's already taken hundreds of hours of my life.
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Obiwanshinobi
- Posts: 7470
- Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:14 am
Re: Full list of arena shooters??....
Spectre, seriously. The graphics are polygonal and you play it in FPP view mostly (Spectre Supreme on the Mac allows you to switch between FPP, overhead and isometric views), but it's a pure arena shooter if I ever played one.
Tank/Battle City on the NES.
Assault by Namco (sprite rotation and scaling, whoa).
Tank/Battle City on the NES.
Assault by Namco (sprite rotation and scaling, whoa).
The rear gate is closed down
The way out is cut off
The way out is cut off
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toaplan_shmupfan
- Posts: 289
- Joined: Wed May 28, 2008 6:15 am
Re: Full list of arena shooters??....
For classic style arena shmups, Wacko appears to be missing from the list.
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worstplayer
- Posts: 861
- Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 6:48 pm
- Location: Slovakia
Re: Full list of arena shooters??....
Echoes - Geometry Wars meets Asteroids.
Tank Domination - bullet hell Battle City
And, of course, shameless plug.
Tank Domination - bullet hell Battle City
And, of course, shameless plug.
"A game isn't bad because you resent it. A game is bad because it's shitty."
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TrevHead (TVR)
- Posts: 2781
- Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2009 11:36 pm
- Location: UK (west yorks)
Re: Full list of arena shooters??....
best to check out neist's multidirectional shmups list (got from another thread on the forum) as its got just about every game ever released http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key= ... fKKg&gid=0
its well worth copying onto a text file incase the link ever dies.
Edit whoops i missed neists post above (was searching for links and din t notice the sig
)
anyway well done neist for putting together such a kick ass list, if you make or come across such a list for other genres pls dont hesitate to post it on the forum.
its well worth copying onto a text file incase the link ever dies.
Edit whoops i missed neists post above (was searching for links and din t notice the sig
)anyway well done neist for putting together such a kick ass list, if you make or come across such a list for other genres pls dont hesitate to post it on the forum.