Mainstream gaming site IGN today have posted a positive article on shmups, providing their staff opinion on the Top 10 Shmups of all time.
Partial excerpt:
IGN wrote:Often called "schmups" (short for shoot-em-ups), the genre has been around since Space Invaders and is seeing a bit of a resurgence today on the Wii Virtual Console and Xbox Live. Today we'll focus on flight-based shooters, so ground-based games like Metal Slug and Alien Hominid will have to wait for their own top ten list. These games really separate the men from the boys (and the women from the girls) with hyper tests of reflexes and hand-eye coordination. Depending on how long you've been gaming, you might not have played (or heard of) some of these titles, but we urge you to seek them out. The "schmup" is an important part of gaming history, and there are few things as satisfying as dodging a hail storm of bullets and coming out unscathed on the other side.
Naturally, frothing demand Ikaruga makes their list...
IGN wrote:10. Gunbird 2
9. Mars Matrix
8. G-Darius
7. R-Type III: The Third Lightning
6. Life Force
5. Bangai-O
4. Radiant Silvergun
3. Ikaruga
2. Do Don Pachi
1. Einhander
It's sad the only "import" titles on their list are Radiant Silvergun and Do Don Pachi. While those are great games, whoever wrote that list is an ignorant bastard.
Reluctant Hero wrote:It's sad the only "import" titles on their list are Radiant Silvergun and Do Don Pachi. While those are great games, whoever wrote that list is an ignorant bastard.
It's a "safe" list. Very few of us would disagree with the 10 they chose... even if there are far better choices.
Reluctant Hero wrote:It's sad the only "import" titles on their list are Radiant Silvergun and Do Don Pachi. While those are great games, whoever wrote that list is an ignorant bastard.
It's much better than some of their other lists. All of the games they chosen are quite good. It's not like the time when Street Fighter II Special Champion Edition was on a worst ports list just because it sucks with a three button controller (which the game obviously wasn't made for).
It'd be a pretty competent list if they didn't make it look as though whoever posted the article was intoxicated.
Based on Tom Mason's tongue-in-check comic book series
Wow. The guy seriously needs to go back to grade school assuming the shmup list was also written by the same author as "top ten dino games." And I thought Matt C's typos were occasionally annoying.
HeLGeN-X wrote:Einhander as the first? I wouldn't say that, but it's a great game.
Mushihimesama for the win
I hope that's Secretary from Tokyo Tribes in your avatar
so long and tanks for all the spacefish unban shw <Megalixir> now that i know garegga is faggot central i can disregard it entirely
<Megalixir> i'm stuck in a hobby with gays
IGN wrote:10. Gunbird 2
9. Mars Matrix
8. G-Darius
7. R-Type III: The Third Lightning
6. Life Force
5. Bangai-O
4. Radiant Silvergun
3. Ikaruga
2. Do Don Pachi
1. Einhander
Einhander as first..? ehhh..
It's funny but I've seen a pattern here in the last ten years, whenever publication runs out of topics to write about, they start making lists, and only common thing with all the lists is that they are all utterly useless.
Was it Play magazine, or one of those other hip gaming mags, that had a top shmups list from every editor and DoDonPachi was nowhere to be seen?
IGN's list surprised me, it's not a hardcore list at all but people who aren't familiar with shmups should be able to eventually love any game that made that list. It's a wonder that DoDonPachi is on there, that's the game that sold me on this genre forever and most of it's following outside of Japan is because of emulation.
Einhander isn't my number one either but it kinda makes sense on this list. For people who grew up in the PSX era, they will be baited by the great production values, soundtrack, FMVs... it's the bitter pill factor.
I applaud IGN for trying to turn more people onto the genre, even if they made some odd choices.
Seemingly their top 10 list are the ONLY 'schmups' they've played. RSG and DDP seem to be mentioned only because someone told them to mention them.
More of a top 10 list of cheaply available domestic shooters you should consider picking up. Other than that, totally ill-informed.
Randorama wrote:ban CMoon for being a closet Jerry Falwell cockmonster/Ann Coulter fan, Nijska a bronie (ack! The horror!), and Ed Oscuro being unable to post 100-word arguments without writing 3-pages posts.
Eugenics: you know it's right!
Damocles wrote:Wow...they really need some help with the editing.
They have now updated the article and fixed the description text about non-shmups which was mistakenly in their original copy.
Their new DDP description spells "shmup" correctly, too.
I have to agree with szycag, that it's good that IGN are trying to at least promote hardcore shmups to some extent to their audience. I would never have guessed DDP would make #2 on a list like this from a mainstream site. There must be at least one die-hard shmup fan working somewhere at IGN, for that to happen.
"Thunder Force VI does not suck, shut your fucking mouth." ~ Shane Bettenhausen
Seems a fine list to me, especially for someone with no knowledge of the genre.
I suppose the way i'm looking at it is, if someone said have you ever played a shmup?, and then offered me this selection, i would be hooked.
It is misguiding that they advertise it as 'the best' when, as pointed out above, it is the only list they can put together from the 11 games they played (and the 11th sucked because the unlimited credits made it too easy... )
Their list is a'ight. Yay for well-documented errors ^_^
#6 Life Force wrote:Based on Tom Mason's tongue-in-check comic book series, Dinosaurs for Hire is one of the lost gems of the Sega Genesis. A trio of dinos act as a sort of prehistoric A-Team, taking on missions for those willing to toss them a wad of cash. The team is made up of Archie, a machinegun-toting T-Rex, Lorenzo, a triceratops who wears Hawaiian t-shirts, and Reese, a stegosaurus who hefts a pulse cannon. Imagine streets of rage with dinosaurs and you can pretty much get the gist of Dinosaurs for Hire. Oh, and throw in ninja. Lots and lots of ninja.
#2 DoDonPachi wrote:A cult classic amongst RPG aficionados, E.V.O.: Search for Eden on the SNES brought the struggle for primeval survival to life better than any of its contemporaries. Search for Eden charged players with the task of evolving a relatively harmless fish into a formidable machine of prehistoric slaughter. No other title before or since has so effectively captured the essence of evolutionary theory in videogame form. Sure SimLife made a bold (if somewhat boring) attempt, but E.V.O. remains the original success story in the niche genre. Now if only Spore would come out, so we can see how it stacks up against this classic.
#1 Einhander wrote:Bonk was pretty much the best reason to own a TurboGrafx-16 back in the day. Fast forward 17 years and Bonk's Adventure is one of the games that still holds its own on the Wii Virtual Console. Featuring headbutt mechanics that have yet to be improved upon, this is the game that started the whole 'cartoon cavemen who bash their heads against dinosaurs' genre which remains popular to this day. Bonk also provides an important key to how life evolved on this planet: it wasn't a meteor that killed off the dinosaurs -- it was a headbutt.
I think Einhander is underrated by the people who think it's overrated. I still wouldn't have put it at #1, but it's a valid choice and there are 20,000,000 worse games to suggest.
CMoon wrote:Seemingly their top 10 list are the ONLY 'schmups' they've played. RSG and DDP seem to be mentioned only because someone told them to mention them.
My thoughts exactly. IGN needs to keep their mouth shut about genres they obviously know nothing about.
