really bad shmups

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 6:10 pm

What do you think makes for a truly lame shoot-em-up, and what are the best examples of the worst the genre has to offer?
Some first, rather obvious thoughts:
We have to distinguish a bad game from a bad port. I'm interested in the former.
I suppose we can all agree that we want to distinguish AT LEAST the following three very broad areas of potential lameness: (1) technical incompetence (e.g. hit-detection, slow-down), (2) aesthetic features (the look and/or sound of the game suck), (3) weak gameplay (e.g. repetitious).
So one question we can debate: Are there other ways a shooter can go badly wrong? For example, how much does originality matter?
The other question we can debate is what games in fact satisfy these criteria of suckiness.
For the most part I can find something valuable in just about any shoot-em-up, but I just recently got Deep Blue for the TG-16, and I can't think of much good to say about it. Perhaps it isn't broken (i.e. technically incompetent): I haven't been moved to play it long enough to find out. The game is just visually bland and repetitious.
If you disagree about Deep Blue, perhaps I'll go back and give it another chance. But I'm especially interested to hear what shmups are simply to be avoided.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 6:17 pm

Insector X for the genesis. I remember this game having god aweful animation.

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 6:29 pm

post here as well.

Mausforce

its a flash game they have posted on Shoot the Core. the link is now 404ed so you can play it no longer.

Anyway, you ship is huge to begin with, collision is your entire ship, and the ship moves slower than molasses. A winning combination! Also of note is its entirely uncreative design.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 6:58 pm

http://www.classicgaming.com/shmups/rev ... index.html

terrible, awful, bad, laughable, think I'd rather have goatse as my wallpaper than play this crap again.

Frogacuda · Post by **Frogacuda** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 6:59 pm

there were alot of really sloppy, cheap, and crappy shooters back in the late 80s. Then Raiden provided an easily mimicked archetype and things brightened up a bit.

One of my friends sent me searching for one such game which he remembered playing as a kid. Turned out to be Vapor Trail, and it was pretty astoundingly mediocre and cheap.

Blue Lander · Post by **Blue Lander** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:01 pm

The two worst shmups I can think off the top of my head are Curse on the Megadrive and P-47 on the PC Engine. Both were beyond dull and looked like crap.

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:13 pm

i will never play it, but curse looks intriguing. anyone got a capture of that last boss?

nem · Post by **nem** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:15 pm

Blue Lander wrote:Curse on the Megadrive

Hear, hear.

That game is bloody awful.

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:19 pm

Bio ship paladin on the genesis nasty........

PsikyoPshumpPshooterP · Sat Feb 26, 2005 8:17 pm

cho aniki and the entire series

Dandy J · Post by **Dandy J** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 8:45 pm

This one seems pretty bad.

http://www.classicgaming.com/shmups/rev ... index.html

MASTER SATAN · Post by **MASTER SATAN** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 8:57 pm

TIGER HELI FOR THE NES. The age old question remains: does it end or does it loop for eternity?

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 8:59 pm

Yes, Bio-ship Paladin is pretty crummy. The gameplay alone would rate it as mediocre, but the fact that it plays molasses-in-January slow makes it a waste of EPROMs.

Others that come to mind:

Raiden Trad (SNES version only, the MD/Genesis version is actually playable. If you can find a complete copy though, the manual is chock full of Engrish.)
D-Force (SNES): recommended only for hardcore fans of excessive Mode7 effects.

theevilfunkster · Post by **theevilfunkster** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 9:46 pm

transbot on the master system. truly abysmal. although i wouldnt mind tracking a copy down as its been about 12 years since ive played it, just to see if it was as bad as i remember. oh, and sol feace on the mega cd was pretty bad too

uwfan · Post by **uwfan** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 9:59 pm

Frogacuda wrote:there were alot of really sloppy, cheap, and crappy shooters back in the late 80s. Then Raiden provided an easily mimicked archetype and things brightened up a bit.

good point, the more times goes by, the more i realize how influential and cool raiden/raiden 2 is.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:16 pm

Neon wrote:http://www.classicgaming.com/shmups/rev ... index.html

terrible, awful, bad, laughable, think I'd rather have goatse as my wallpaper than play this crap again.

That's not a shmup. It's more of an arena RPG. For the type of game that it iis, it is fun. But I got bored before finishing the first area.

And I agree, Curse on the megadrive sucked ass.

Blue Lander · Post by **Blue Lander** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:35 pm

Curse is one of those games that look good in screenshots, but look like crap when you actually play them. It's a very amateurish game. It feels almost like it was written in Quickbasic.

TWITCHDOCTOR · Post by **TWITCHDOCTOR** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:37 pm

landshark wrote:Insector X for the genesis. I remember this game having god aweful animation.

I always though that Insector X was a great launch title shmup for the Genesis...I like even to this day. Even 1CC it recently! Still, it does trail behind ThunderForce II and Forgotten Worlds, which where also launch titles at the time.

Damocles · Post by **Damocles** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:11 am

I'll throw my vote in for D-Force on SNES. Yay for pointless shmups.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:39 am

I actually really like Curse, and I agree that Insector X is a pretty good early Genesis shmup.

Xenon 2 is the absolute WORST shmup that I have ever played. Slow, boring, and tedious. And I've played the Master System version and the Megadrive version. Horrible game, IMO.

TWITCHDOCTOR · Post by **TWITCHDOCTOR** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:51 am

Damocles wrote:I'll throw my vote in for D-Force on SNES. Yay for pointless shmups.

Yea, D-Force brings back some horrid memories.
It was the first shmup we(Zeroeight& myself) played on the SNES...we were expecting somthing like Twin Cobra, but we got nausiated instead.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:05 am

"Retro Force" on the Playstation was my worst shmup I purchased... on paper it sounded good, but in reality it's pure garbage. instant coaster...

Ord · Post by **Ord** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:11 am

Trizeal without a doubt!

Nah that's bollocks

I had the misfortune of buying "retro force" and by fook i've regreted it ever since!!!

MadSteelDarkness · Post by **MadSteelDarkness** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 2:44 am

Strike Force Hydra for the GBA. This puppy makes a crapfest like Master of Weapon (Megadrive) look like Donpachi.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 3:44 am

I second Scramble Eggs. I did that review myself

On the MSX there's also Battle Cross.

And there's Sirius 7 on Amiga

Really.. Raiden Trad, Xenon 2, Transbot.. all those are below average game

for REAL crap stuff... play those 3 shmups...

tehkao · Post by **tehkao** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 4:28 am

I really liked Insector X. Sure it's only mediocre but I don't see why people hate it. I thought the art was really, really good. There's nothing like blowing up giant bugs.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 4:54 am

Ya know, it's very possible I'm mistaking Curse for Insector-X.

One of them had the most awful animation. Even moving around the screen was super choppy.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 4:57 am

I dunno if this counts, but Superman the Arcade game had a series of Side-scrolling Shmup sub-levels that made me want to cry. The screen scrolls faster than you can shoot, assuming you CAN shoot (you had to charge up your Heat vision), mosly you're just flying through Brick walls and punching at them.

Oh, and lets not forget dying.

That game owes me $40.

brand1bil · Post by **brand1bil** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 10:24 am

Two-Tenkaku for the PS1 is probably the worst I've played - It's soo bad, don't let stupid rare-ity and stuff like that make you buy this game.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 10:31 am

I'll throw in another vote for Curse. That game is horrible.

XDR is another game that's full of suckiness.

Magic Girl is also pretty abysmal, at least during the stages, some of the boss fights aren't too bad, actually.

And I think Xenon II rather belongs in the "bad ports" category. The Master System and Mega Drive versions are really as bad as a game can be, but the Amiga/Atari ST versions aren't all that bad. I seem to remember having lots of fun playing through the Amiga version back in the day. Of course I wasn't spoiled by having played really good shmups back then.
For a shmup which was obviously done by non-shmuppers, Xenon II was decent. Very overrated, full of flaws, but decent. And I'm still amazed at the brilliant art of the Bitmap Brothers. To think that those stunningly beautiful graphics are done with only 16 colours makes me want to cry and quit my job as a graphic artist. Oh yes, and the music rocked. To sum it up: Xenon II is to me an average shmup with brilliant visuals and great music, not a truly awful title.

On the other hand: I did enjoy playing Plutos for quite a while, so maybe It's just me having a soft spot for subpar shmups.