Does River Raid not deserve some sequelitis?

[boagman]

I guess this has bugged me for quite some time, but one of my favorite old-school shooters was River Raid for the 2600. It was actually quite a feat in terms of gameplay, what with the speed of your plane and the horizontal movement both controlled by the joystick. Some pretty inventive thought went into many of the stages and how you'd want to play them: big risk/big reward, or would you rather play it safe? Don't be caught getting too greedy, or you won't be able to blow the bridge to progress to the next level. Keep that FUEL gauge high enough that you don't need to be anxiety-filled the next few seconds, and heaven help you should you shoot the FUEL station that you needed.

This is a game that had some seriously interesting elements of play for back then, and many of the ideas present haven't been revisited since, especially the control scheme. Also, as a matter of fact, designed by a chick! Whodathunkit?

So...no one's ever thought of trying a vertical shmup like this again? Why not?

[Fudoh]

There was a DS-sequel in the planning several years ago. Screenshots looked great - was vertical across both screens.. Unfortunately it got never released.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

There's the River Raid II sequel that was done by Dan Kitchen released as a bonafide 2600 commercial port from likes of publisher Activision in the late 1980s (he also worked on the 7800 game of F-14: Tomcat game as well).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Udderdude]

The fuel pickups you can accidentally shoot wouldn't really work in a modern shooter where it's all too easy to shoot everywhere. Your shot would need to be pretty wimpy to not accidentally blow them up.

[DJ Incompetent]

You don't want to see a new River Raid.

..says somebody who's played the Defender reboot and 1942 Joint Strike.

[boagman]

The fuel pickups you can accidentally shoot wouldn't really work in a modern shooter where it's all too easy to shoot everywhere. Your shot would need to be pretty wimpy to not accidentally blow them up.

It's a different type of idea, though. It's very much borrowing from the style of Galaxian or Kokuga, wherein the player can only fire one shot at a time until the shot either hits something (enemy, obstacle, or otherwise) or flies offscreen. Then the player's ship can fire again. Shooting "everywhere" in this game (or even in this *type* of game) isn't advised for intelligent play. You won't last long that way, anyway, since there's more thought being put into mere survival. As a matter of fact, in River Raid, *nothing* shoots at the player. At all. And it still managed to be quite good!

[boagman]

You don't want to see a new River Raid.

..says somebody who's played the Defender reboot and 1942 Joint Strike.

I have not played those, but anything that would be a proper sequel to River Raid would have to have its original spirituality intact. It'd be ridiculously hard to do any quality Defender/Stargate game without Jarvis at the helm.

[BrianC]

There's the River Raid II sequel that was done by Dan Kitchen released as a bonafide 2600 commercial port from likes of publisher Activision in the late 1980s (he also worked on the 7800 game of F-14: Tomcat game as well).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

He worked on the very similar 2600 version of F-14 Tomcat too.

Edit: Actually, according to MobyGames, Tony Chung Lau did the 7800 port and Dan Kitchen only did the 2600 version.

[Udderdude]

While making a minimalist, one-shot-at-a-time shooter would be an interesting exercise and might even make for a good casual/mobile phone game, I'm too busy/tired to do it myself .. and I said I wasn't going to do any more shooters >_>

[louisg]

There's the River Raid II sequel that was done by Dan Kitchen released as a bonafide 2600 commercial port from likes of publisher Activision in the late 1980s (he also worked on the 7800 game of F-14: Tomcat game as well).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

He worked on the very similar 2600 version of F-14 Tomcat too.

Edit: Actually, according to MobyGames, Tony Chung Lau did the 7800 port and Dan Kitchen only did the 2600 version.

I felt like a more simmy direction was the wrong thing for River Raid. I'd like to see something that plays like the original, but with enemies actually shooting at you And more variety. It could be great!

[BrianC]

I felt like a more simmy direction was the wrong thing for River Raid. I'd like to see something that plays like the original, but with enemies actually shooting at you And more variety. It could be great!

Some of the official ports of River Raid like the Atari 800 and Colecovision added tanks that appeared on the land that could shoot at you.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Not to mention that River Raid was the very first verizontal-based shmup title indeed. Sure pre-dates those Takumi verizontals like the Gigawing trilogy series, Night Raid, & Mars Matrix.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[boagman]

I felt like a more simmy direction was the wrong thing for River Raid. I'd like to see something that plays like the original, but with enemies actually shooting at you And more variety. It could be great!

Well, if you want to be dodging enemies' bullets, then you probably have to give up the idea of using the joystick as both speed adjuster and horizontal axis. Is that worth it to you?

[louisg]

I felt like a more simmy direction was the wrong thing for River Raid. I'd like to see something that plays like the original, but with enemies actually shooting at you And more variety. It could be great!

Well, if you want to be dodging enemies' bullets, then you probably have to give up the idea of using the joystick as both speed adjuster and horizontal axis. Is that worth it to you?

I don't think that's true. It doesn't have to be bullet storming, just a classic-era style potshot to dodge every now and then. You either floor it or put on the brakes. Or, just enemies that do *something* besides sitting there waiting to get blown up.

[drunkninja24]

There was a DS-sequel in the planning several years ago. Screenshots looked great - was vertical across both screens.. Unfortunately it got never released.

I'm sad that we never had a vert shmup on DS do this. It was like, one of the first uses for the dual screens I thought of when the system was first announced.

[Udderdude]

I'm sad that we never had a vert shmup on DS do this. It was like, one of the first uses for the dual screens I thought of when the system was first announced.

It's not as cool as you might think trying to dodge projectiles that either warp across a gap, or disappear for awhile ..