 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Freeware roundup: SHOOT-EM-UPS! by Mischief Maker 08/25/2007, 12:51am PDT | ||||
 |
 |
|||
I have recently discovered a renewed interest in shoot-em-ups (or shmups), especially the bullet hell variety. In response, I have been poring over the net looking for new and interesting games to add to my repertoire. Here's what I found:
Note that most of these games are japanese. So 2 things: Here are the 3 indispensable freeware shmups, for those who are new to this forum: Cho Ren Sha 68K (Note that an update came out in 2005 if you have an older version) Warning Forever The shooters of Kenta Cho And here are 10 of the most interesting shmups I've since found, in no particular order. Twin Seeds DX This is a freeware takeoff of the ever popular "Shanghai Alice" series of curtain shooters, only this game features anime ninjas tossing throwing stars at each other instead of little girls having a tea party that turns ugly! The basic rhythm of the game is shooting at mobs of black cats that leave powerups in their wake, occasionally having minor skirmishes with the boss until the final battle where the boss not only throws obscene numbers of projectiles at you, but also casts spells that mess with you like screwing with your controls or obscuring your vision. The main hook of the game is bullet scratching. You only fire at max power while you're scratching against projectiles and if you scratch long enough you will annihilate all the bullets in the surrounding area. The graphics are way less polished than the Shanghai Alice games, but I think the music is much better. Note that the default options set the controls to "auto-slow" and I suggest you disable that. My only complaint is that the game never shows where exactly your hitbox is located. Nemesis (Scroll down) A remake of Gradius that's superior to the original in every way. The orchestral remix of the classic music is fantastic and totally blows away the soundtrack of Gradius V on the PS2. Thanks to this game, I finally figured out why I was getting my ass kicked again and again back in the 80s (I was going straight for the laser and options and not stocking up on speedups first). The main downside to this game is that it retains all the weaknesses of the original game, including a seperate button for launching missiles. Blue Wish Resurrection More like Blue Wish Res-Erection! Now this is what I call bullet hell! Hundreds and hundreds of bullets coming your way in all manner of shapes and formations. Fortunately, your ship shoots practically an equal number of bullets right back! The game also includes an option to automatically use your bombs when you get hit at the cost of them not dealing any damage when they defend. You can even pick what color you want enemy bullets to be. Fun fun fun! The main complaint to level against this game is that its production values are really really cheezy. Especially the sound for collecting points (item_score.wav in the se folder) which I found so irritating that I ended up replacing it. End Effector I believe the story behind this game is that it's an incomplete commercial game that was released as freeware. The main places this game is lacking are the fact that enemies make no sound effects and most of the textures are poor quality. Other than that it's a great horizontal polygon-based shooter with good music and a 360 degree aimable charge shot (shoots toward your ship). Note that level 1 is not representative of the quality of rest of the game in terms of challenge, music, or visuals. Fortunately it's really short. La Soeur de Barrage Another Shanghai Alice clone, this time with the twist that the entire thing's controlled with the mouse. Left click shoots. However, the designers are fully aware of the maneuverability advantage that gives you and have created appropriately fast and wily projectiles to compensate. It comes with 2 different executables depending on whether you want to play fullscreen or in a window. My biggest complaint is that there are no bombs. Get caught in the wrong corner in the midst of a savage barrage and kiss one life goodbye. G-Type Ever wonder what you'd get if you mixed R-Type with Gradius? You know you want to see Dobkeratops with a Moai sticking out of its chest. Note that the difficulty level alters the powerup mechanics. My one complaint is that the button setup is awkward (Z shoot, X powerup, C force). Sonic Ironstorm (Direct Download Link) Want some Shmup excitement but don't have much time? Sonic Ironstorm is the answer! The game is crafted to take no longer than 3 minutes of gameplay time. Z shoots the regular shot, X shoots a slow-firing powerful missile, both have unlimited ammo. Since it doesn't have much time, this game doesn't fuck around. Hundreds of fighters and tanks spraying gobs of bullets at you litter the screen every moment. Then you face huge boss enemies with individual destructable components who automatically self-destruct if you don't finish them off in 30 seconds. The term "manic" gets thrown around a lot for shooters, here's one that lives up to the term. Engage to Jabberwock Legend of Zelda meets curtain shooter. You're exploring a huge labyrinth infested with malevolent pumpkins, battlemechs, and chicks in crotchless lingerie riding tanks, all of whom shoot huge masses of bullets at you. You get a shitload of spells with combination effects to fight back with. Clearing any room grants an item and every room stays cleared. The big two-tone easter egg things will open every door of one color and lock every door of the other color so there is a touch of braininess required to navigate the dungeon. Also, your flame attack can counter a boss's flame attack ala. G-Darius. My main complaints are the overly complicated controls and an intermittent bug that will lose my keyboard bindings when I load a saved game. Clean Asia Really fucking weird and intentionally so. Here's the actual plot: CACTUS wrote: Everyone's going gaga over this game. Telling anything about the gameplay would probably ruin half the charm of figuring out this game, though I will say that ship 1 is the true player's choice. Also, preessing Enter will hurry through game messages. |
||||
 |
 |
|||
|
Freeware roundup: SHOOT-EM-UPS! by 08/25/2007, 12:51am PDT  Clean Asia by 08/25/2007, 1:31am PDT Oops. That was only 9. Here's #10... by 08/25/2007, 9:07am PDT Update! by 10/02/2007, 11:32am PDT Re: Update! by 10/02/2007, 1:18pm PDT You completely ignored my guide to navigating Vector.co.jp, also. NT by 10/02/2007, 8:08pm PDT Bananadine is the new Caltrops village idiot. NT by 10/02/2007, 11:06pm PDT Re: You completely ignored my guide to navigating Vector.co.jp, also. by 10/03/2007, 1:35am PDT Hermione kills yr boner. NT by 10/03/2007, 1:41am PDT |
