Category: Shoot-em Up

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2 out of 5 C64 Shoot-em Up

F1 Tornado

Publisher: Zepplin Games

Designer: Wahid Kahn, Neil Hislop

Type: Shoot-em Up

Platform: C64

Release Date: 1991

Rating:

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I came to this game, that is whether it was a shootem-up or not. Well, it turned out that it isn’t a flight simulator, but rather a shootem-up, and a pretty hard one at that. You are basically flying a jet fighter and you have lots of enemies coming at you, as well as lots of ships firing stuff at you, and well, yeah, that is about it.

Actually, I found that the baddies pretty much come at you really thick and fast, which made it really, really hard to avoid getting blown up, when it was being hit by a missile (or rather a bullet) from one of the ships or being struck by one of the many planes that seem to come flying in your direction. The thing was that you really don’t seem to be given all that much breathing space, which meant that even if I managed to shoot down, or avoid, one of the many swarms that were coming towards me, then another lot would come. As it turned out, I spent more time dodging things than actually shooting any of the baddies down.

Then there are the ships. Well, there was just way, way too many of them. In fact, it felt as if I was flying over an entire fleet, and of course, you do have to avoid them because, well, planes and ships tend not to mix, especially if you slam into them at the speed that you are travelling. I did work out that you can actually shoot down the turrets, but of course you do have to pull up before, well, splatting against the bridge.

Yeah, this game was just way too hard for my liking, and I’m glad I never forked out any money for it when I was a kid, though I do suspect that maybe, just maybe, it was one of those el-cheapo games, which still doesn’t mean that it was value for money.

Well, not surprisingly, there is no Wikipedia page, but you can find some details (as scant as they are) on Lemon 64.

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2 out of 5 C64 Shoot-em Up

Avenger

Publisher: Commodore

Designer: Commodore

Type: Shoot-em Up

Platform: C64

Release Date: 1982

Rating:

For some reason, the file that this game happened to be in was called Avenger (which as it turns out, is the correct name). Okay, considering that this does happen to be an old C64 game, I wasn’t expecting it to have anything to do with those Marvel characters, or collecting pieces of the infinity stone to defeat Thanos. Rather, I wasn’t actually sure what this game was actually about. So, when I fired it up, you can probably imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was space invaders.

Look, I shouldn’t be too harsh on the game because it is actually one of the original arcade games, and I have played it a few times. I won’t necessarily say that it is easy though, especially since as you go up levels it does tend to get harder and harder. Then again, the more that you shoot, the faster they become. Apparently this started as a bug in the game, but because it worked so well, the original designers decided not to fix it.

However, I have to admit that the game is, well, boring. Like, yeah, its space invaders, and there is only so much of this game that I can play before I want to go and do something else, or even play something else. Still, it is certainly something to remember for posterities sake (and no doubt this isn’t the last time I’ll be writing a review of this game, though it will probably be on a different platform).

So, I guess the reason for the name change is that Commodore (who released the game) didn’t actually have the rights for the original title, so they ended up making their own. Anyway, there is a brief article about this game on Wikipedia, for what it’s worth.

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2 out of 5 Run & Shoot Shoot-em Up SNES

Contra III: The Alien Wars

Publisher: Konami

Designer: Nobuya Nakazato

Type: Shoot-em Up

Platform: SNES

Release Date: 1992

Rating:

Okay, I found that this game was a little hard. It’s your basic shootem-up type game (though I believe the correct term if run & shoot), though it also happens to be sideways scrolling as well. It appears that you play some sort of soldier and you have to go around killing nasties (which is basically what you have to do in pretty much all shootem-up games). The thing was that the nasties seem to come at you thick and fast, which meant that before I knew it, I had run into a nasty and it was back to the beginning.

Oh, the controls were a little confusing (though I probably could have solved that by actually looking at the instructions, but then again I do happen to be a guy, and we all know what guys tend to think of instructions). One of the things that seemed to be happening, when I was randomly pressing buttons on my controller (I would call it a joystick, but since it is a Nintendo controller, there doesn’t happen to be any stick to give me any joy) I would set of a nuclear bomb or something, but since there were no nasties around, it pretty much didn’t do all that much.

The other thing is that you can rotate your gun to fire upwards, which was also awkward because I would try to turn around to shoot a nasty coming at me from behind, only to discover that my gun was pointing upwards and not at the nasty coming at me. That meant that the nasty would basically take me out.

Yeah, I wasn’t all that impressed. It was cool Nintendo stuff, however, yeah, I’ll give this one a miss as well.

Anyway, you can find out more about this game from Wikipedia, and I’ve also noticed that there is an entire Wiki dedicated to it as well.

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4 out of 5 Shoot-em Up SNES

Super R-Type

Publisher: Nintendo

Designer: Irem

Type: Shoot-em Up

Platform: SNES

Release: 1991

Rating: undefined

How can I describe this game other than as one of your typical shootem-ups. Well, I guess you could call it a typical shoot-em-up.

However, it wasn’t too bad, though, like a lot of similar games, this one can sort of grab your attention and drag you into a quagmire of simply spending heaps of time trying to see how far you can get. Well, I didn’t get caught up in that quagmire, not that I didn’t want to, but rather that I ended up getting bored rather quickly. Also, I kept on dying, but then again, that is sort of what you should expect to happen in such games.

I ended up getting bored rather quickly. Also, I kept on dying, but then again, that is sort of what you should expect to happen in such games.
I’m not sure if there is a story behind the game, but I suspect there is, not that you really pay all that much attention to it. It seems that you are basically a fighter pilot who flies their spacecraft towards a multitude of enemies and then have to face off against the big bad guy at the end of each level. Since I didn’t really get past the first big bad guy (as I said, it is challenging), I can say whether this is one of those ‘infinite loop’ type of games, though a part of me suspects that it just well maybe.

One interesting thing though is that you do have a power-up button, where you can charge your weapon to be extra strong simply by holding it down. Actually, I should also mention that I didn’t realise that you have two guns – one normal gun, and one that you can power up – though since these guns are pretty much, how do you say it, similar, I’m not sure why you have two.

In the end, though, this game was rather fun, though you may want to try to avoid getting sucked into a quagmire.

Anyway, you can find more information about this game on Wikipedia, of course, but there are also some reviews of this game as well, such as this site.

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4 out of 5 C64 Shoot-em Up

Attack of the Mutant Camels

Publisher: Llamasoft

Designer: Jeff Minter

Type: Shoot-em Up

Platform: C64

Rating:

This is one of the classic games of the Commodore 64 and I have to admit that it is absolutely awesome. Oh, and it is pretty hard as well, not impossible, just pretty hard. Basically, you are flying a space ship (and honestly, what else would you be flying in a shoot-em-up) and there are these massively gigantic camels heading towards you that shoot bombs out of their eyes. Oh, and occasionally they also fire smart bombs, which means that they home in on you.

You have energy levels, which does actually make it somewhat easier (otherwise it would be massively impossible because avoiding those bombs, and those smart-bombs, is a challenge in and of itself). You also have three lives, which really helps as well, but the problem is that first of all, these camels aren’t easy to kill – by no means. You simply have to bombard them with bullets, and as they get weaker they change colours until you finally kill one. Yet, there is more than just one.

The other catch is that these camels are moving slowly across the screen, and when they reach the edge of the screen it is basically ‘game over man, game over’. Yeah, when that happens, it does not matter how many lives you have left, your base has been destroyed and you might as well start over again.

This game is full-on fast-paced and is honestly one of those amazing games that I remember from my youth. Oh, it also has a two-player mode, though I don’t believe you attack them at the same time (which would have been much, much easier mind you). Yeah, this game rocks.

Oh, it also appears that this game has made it into the Smithsonian as a museum piece, at least according to the games Wikipedia article. Another thing I discovered from this same article is that you can find the source code for the game up on Github, which is also pretty awesome (though it was written in assembly). In fact, the popularity of the game has warranted it an article all of its own in the Old School Gamer Magazine. Oh, and in case I forget, you call also find out more about it on Lemon 64.

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2 out of 5 Shoot-em Up

Alley Oops

Publisher: Artworx

Type: Shoot-em Up

Platform: C64

Rating:

It seems that people will turn anything into a shoot-em-up, and this game is a case in point. Well, it could also be an attempt to make a bowling simulator by somebody who, halfway through, decided to give up and make a shoot-em-up instead because, well, they are just so much easier to write (and you can see my Java version of Space Invaders as a case in point).

The game itself starts during World War I where you guide your futuristic plane across the skies shooting down, and attempting to avoid, Anyway, yeah, it is basically a bowling game, but instead of doing what you would normally do in a bowling game, you instead have to shoot pins as they come flying at you. There are a number of lanes which you can move across, and the pins come down these lanes randomly, so you need to move across the lanes to hit the pins. Oh, your weapon is a bowling ball, but you probably guess that already. There are otherways of scoring points as well, but I guess that is enough.

So, what did I think about this game? I guess my comments have basically told you everything you need to know, and that is basically that I wasn’t all that impressed. Okay, it is fun for a while, but it is just one of those simplistic games that you pretty much get sick of pretty quickly. Mind you, my initial reaction was ‘seriously! You have got to be kidding me!’.

Mind you, I have had a lot of difficulty actually finding any information about this game because, well, there certainly isn’t a Wikipedia entry, not a C64 Wiki entry either. However, I did find some vague information on Lemon 64, and of course somebody has posted a video of it up on Youtube.

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4 out of 5 Game Shoot-em Up

Time Pilot

Publisher: Konami

Designer: Yoshiki Okamoto

Type: Shoot-em Up

Platform: C64

Release: 1984

Rating: undefined

A lot of games that were converted from the arcade machine to the home computer really didn’t come out all that well, no doubt due to the limitations of the home computer. Well, it wasn’t the case with this game. Then again, the game is actually quite simple when considered. Basically, the story goes that you are from the future and a number of your comrades have been scattered throughout history and it is your job to travel back in time to rescue them.

The game itself starts during World War I where you guide your futuristic plane across the skies shooting down, and attempting to avoid, various planes from the time. You will also encounter people hanging from parachutes – these are the guys that you are attempting to rescue. There is a timer at the bottom that once the time runs out then a ‘mothership’ will appear that you have to shoot down to allow you to progress into the future.

Mind you, I’ve only made it as far as the Vietnam War (passing through World War I and World War II). That is probably because once you get to Vietnam you suddenly have helicopters that fire guided missiles, and I am sure if I put more effort into it I could probably defeat that level as well. There are two more levels after this one, though I have never been good enough to be able to get that far.

This is one of my favourite arcade games, though like a lot of these games I can’t necessarily claim that I am really any good. I guess I liked the idea of flying around World War I in a futuristic fighter shooting down bi-planes, though it isn’t like shooting fish in a barrel as it sounds, because it turns out that that the weapons on the biplanes are actually quite capable of shooting your plane down, which means it is probably a pretty good idea to avoid those bullets, and of course bashing through the planes doesn’t work all that well either.

You can find some hints and tips on Strategywiki, and of course, you can always go to Wikipedia for a more, unbiased, account of this game.

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