What game sparked your interest in shooters?

[null1024]

When I was a kid, I loved Galaga, Space Invaders and 1942, and rarely some R-Type and Gradius.
If there was a shoot-em-up in an arcade, I'd play it [there weren't many, everyone was busy with Tekken and Time Crisis and Daytona cabs, not enough floorspace for a plain-old shooter].

I didn't play much else in terms of shmups, until years later, when I picked up MAME [as part of my "emulate everything" campaign, where I'd just try to get a bunch of random emulators working, even if I had no use for them ] and ran Dangun and Progear, and just fell in love with them.
And now almost all I play are shmups.

[brentsg]

As a youngster, I played some standouts in the arcades. Though the forumla has changed, these were amazing games. I pretty much played them all but these stand out.
-Galaga
-Phoenix
-Xevious
-Tempest
-Star Castle
-Defender & Stargate
-Gorf
-Gyruss

Colecovision:
-Cosmic Avenger rocked

Years later on the NES I played the heck out of Life Force (Konami). From there, I got busy and didn't do much shmup-wise until the PC Engine.. then the JPN Saturn. Man those were some good times.

[Dave_K.]

...playing Stargate at a local teen hangout with my best friend every weekend summer of '82. This was the most intimidating game I ever played, with 6 button layout, tons of scoring tricks, and all to get your initials on the "immortals" score board (it saved scores after powerdown!)

[BIL]

I've had an affection for shooters since the late 80s when I was six and playing Life Force and Gyruss' NES ports, and I casually enjoyed localised ports in the PSX days (like R-Type Delta and Raystorm). But it wasn't until 2003 that I stumbled across Edge magazine's DOJ review, which turned me on to competitive arcade scoring. Actually a very well-written review - gave a lot of respect to shooters, while still admitting they're not for everyone. Since the games I liked at that point weren't for everyone either, and hard to find in the west, I started gradually moving into arcade / arcade-influenced titles and imports. I also stopped buying game magazines, ironically.

I do like DOJ, but even if I hated it that review would've still gotten me into shooters and by extension arcade games. I'm glad I didn't come across some "hardest boss evar" clip instead, which would've probably just compounded in my mind that EGM Giga Wing 2 review claiming it was "frequently impossible to avoid death" in it.

[Wonderbanana]

Space Invaders was my first shooter I recall playing but I was really hooked on Galaxian mostly as a nipper and later Tiger Heli.

Silkworm was my most played floppy on the Amiga; even went especially to a trade show to pick it up.

eBay's arrival and the sudden emergence of 'retro games' got me back into shooters as I realised just how many I'd missed through the 3D era, especially the Jap Saturn stuff.

I now go through phases of playing and not playing, currently I love Mushi Futari, my last love was Under Defeat.

I'm no hardcore player, I have a tate monitor and a couple of sticks but I don't just play shooters all the time and truth be told I'm pretty crap at most of them. Nearly 30 years in the genre and still a 'noob' but I just love playing them as I always have. There's something pure about shooters as games, when I find one that bites me nothing else compares.

[exquisite_torture]

Gradius, Salamander, Tiger Heli and Flying Shark were all cabinets that I enjoyed playing at a local snooker club.
We didn't really have arcades as such, just dirty old smoke filled dens of iniquity with poker, fruit machines and a few video games.

[Aquas]

Space Invaders was my first shooter I recall playing

I seemed to forget but when I had a gameboy pocket (in the days of Pokemon Blue) I had purchased the Gameboy Space Invaders game. I'm not sure what exactly sparked my interest to pick it up... I think I knew the name and how historic it was and wanted to play it myself. Granted, I enjoyed it. But I do remember getting bored of it eventually. It's funny how STGs were a part of many people's lives before they seriously got into the genre. It must be a lot more common for that in Japan.
Off topic but Legend of the River King was my favorite Gameboy game.

[Marurun]

When I was little, around five years old, I played Fireshark for the Genesis at a friend's house, then we played Thunder Force II and III. That's when my liking for shooters kinda began. Although when it came to more intense shooters I vividly remember wasting tons of quarters on Aero Fighters 2 and really enjoying how fast the bullets aimed at your ship, which then led to liking the more recent stuff.

[gray117]

r-type sparked it - arcade alien amazingness. Then the metal slug appreciation led me to look at the saturn and dodonpachi was the thing that actually got me to bring them home. Although I did like arrow flash on megadrive... not sure exactly why - perhaps just because I had it

[Funen1]

While I don't have too much experience in the "wide world" of shooting games, I think the one that got me interested was Subterranean Animism. It wasn't the first shmup I had played in recent memory, though. I had done a bit of Raiden Fighters Jet beforehand, but I knew that I, a newbie at the time, would run into a lot of trouble early on and likely wouldn't make much progress. Then I discovered Touhou, something much more accessible, and I quickly realized how much fun I was having with those kind of games. I'm starting to branch out a bit more now, but good ol' SA is what started it.

[Slingshot]

I can't remember the first shmup i played but i remember what dedicated me to the genre. I was at a video game convention called magfest a few years back and in one corner there were four tated astro citys back to back. I had just got done trying out street fighter 4 for the first time and needed a break from fighters for a few minutes. I saw a game that had a muromachi theme (guwange) and instantly fell in love with it, i sat there and played his cave shmups for the rest of the convention lol.

[R-Gray 1]

i think in NES times i really liked shooters
Maybe this 3 Nes games was the reason of i was interested in shooters:

Star Force
Twin Bee
B-Wings

Im proud to had played Star Force when i was a kid
that is a magnificent game, fast enemies, bullets everywhere, vertical shooter, and you have to dodge bullets and enemy's ships....not like maniac shooters that you have to find small spaces to evade enemy attacks.