History of Shoot 'em ups 1982-2000: PC, Amiga, Archimedes, ST, C64

History of Shoot 'em Ups: 1982-2000

This history of shoot 'em ups is mostly concerned with mid-80s to mid-90s shoot 'em ups that were coded for Western computer-game machines. A Western computer-game machine is a PC or microcomputer sold by Western computer manufacturers and upon which Westerners primarily played computer games.

However, where applicable I cover ports of foreign shoot 'em ups to IBM PC and Western 16 and 32 bit micros manufactured by Atari, Acorn and Commodore; that is, the ST, Archimedes [0.1] and Amiga. However, I also cover 8 bit Commodore 64 shoot 'em ups because the C64 was strong in the genre.

By Western, I mean primarily the UK, the USA, the British Commonwealth and Western Continental Europe. Since their shoot 'em ups dominated on Western computer-game machines, I am mostly concerned with British, German and North American shoot 'em ups.

This article is divided into four main sections:

• Shoot 'em up Criteria of Assessment & Language [0.0]
• MS-DOS IBM PC Shoot 'em Ups [1.0]
• Amiga, ST and Archimedes Shoot 'em ups [2.0]
• Shoot 'em up Rankings [3.0]

 

Both [1.0] and [2.0] coverages are interspersed with 8 bit Commodore 64 shoot 'em ups (C64 or C=64). I did this to honor the C64 and show how the C64 shooter competed with shooters coded for more powerful systems. By interspersing C64 shoot 'em ups in what is largely a "16 bit" history, a stronger light is shone upon the C64 than would be via C64-only history.

Attentive readers may make the following observations by reading this article:

• "Wow, this shooter is great. But the C64 did something similar, years before. And you can see the influence".
• "Man, I can't believe the C64 is still contending in 1992. This little micro kicked ass."

Learn to search articles by string with Ctrl + F. That way you can find what you are looking for. Otherwise, this article is to be read from top to bottom.

Shoot 'em up Criteria of Assessment [0.0]

 

Under this article's criteria of assessment it was the Germans that consistently coded king-tier 2D shoot 'em ups. The Germans also excelled as composers and graphicians. If I was a publisher wanting to bankroll king-tier shoot 'em ups for 8 or 16 bit microcomputers from 1987-99, I would be thinking "Germany".

But if I was looking to make an array of 3D shoot 'em ups, I'd be thinking "Britain". But 3D shoot 'em ups did not take off because the Archimedes [0.1] did not take off as a computer-game machine. If it did we'd be looking at a different computer-game landscape in the late 80s and early 90s; perhaps an even more inventive computer-game industry during that period; perhaps without the overwhelming Doom / Quake FPS dominance of the North Americans. Not that Doom / Quake lacked inventiveness; they had that in spades: I'm talking about inventiveness as it pertains to different genre as well as new-genre birth.

Anyway, what I look for in shoot 'em ups is responsive controls, fair difficulty, good collision detection, wave variety, good weapons systems and smooth sprite-shifting and smooth screen-scrolling. In short, good gameplay and good coding that facilitates good gameplay.

Since the subject is vitally important to the vast majority of shoot 'em ups, I recommend reading the above-linked screen-scrolling article if you haven't already. I also recommend that, for historical context, you read my 1990s Computer Game History article.

In shoot 'em ups thumping soundtracks and meaty weapon and explosion sound effects are also desirable. On the other hand, I am not big on unit customization and other feature-bloat: I prefer that shoot 'em ups focus on the basics, which facilitates good gameplay and replayability.

While infographics and a few words suffices for a walk down memory lane to computer-game veterans, this article stands as a thorough history of shoot 'em ups on IBM PC, ST, Amiga and Archimedes home computers. Sometimes, I also compare such shoot 'em ups with 8 bit microcomputer and arcade-machine shoot 'em ups.

This 20,000-word history of shoot 'em ups contains 170 original infographics that readers can browse through via mouse-wheeling up and down. And that is all most people want: a concise visual overview.

Verily I say unto thee, nowhere on the internet can you seamlessly browse through 170 shoot 'em up infographics.

To see the infographics in scaled resolution (2k-4k px), right-click and open in a new tab.

The Language of Shoot 'em ups: Definition of Terms

I don't like the term SHMUP because it sounds stupid and cheap.  Instead, I employ the term shoot-'em-up. I consider shoot-'em-up (hyphenated or not) to be the authentic term to employ in computer game journalism.

Or simply "shooter" or "blaster" for short.

One would say:

• Fixed-viewport shoot 'em up or shooter
• Vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up or shooter (top-down)
• Horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up or shooter (side-elevation)
• Multi (directionally) -scrolling shoot 'em up or shooter
• Isometric shoot 'em up or shooter
• 3D or vector-based shoot 'em up or shooter
• Lightgun shooter (first-person polygonal or sprite super-scaler)
• Third-person shooter
• Railshooter (sprite super-scaler)
• Run n gun or run and gun

This is how most computer-gamers, journalists and arcade champions referred to the different types of shoot 'em ups in the 80s and 90s.

Naturally, I am mostly concerned with fixed-viewport and vertically- and horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em ups. Because those are the best type of shoot 'em up overall. As a rule, sprite-scalers and vector-based shooters lack the timelessness of slick 2D shooters, which do not age.

First-person shooters (FPS) such as Doom, Quake and Half-Life are not shoot 'em ups.

Screen-scrolling in Shoot 'em ups

The scrolling is silky, the screen scrolls silkily, the scrolling is silky-smooth, the silkiest screen-scrolling possible.

Vertically- and horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em ups almost always auto-scroll. And in some shoot 'em ups the rate at which a screen scrolls is governed by player input (.e.g., "pushing" the screen upwards, downwards or sideways). Reversing is also sometimes possible (Xenon 2).

I call shoot 'em ups that feature variable-rate and silky-smooth scrolling super-scrollers. Uridium 2 is an example of a super-scroller.

Shoot 'em ups that scroll should do so smoothly. Shoot 'em ups should tap hardware to a level such that smoothness is maintained when on-screen action scales; that is, the framerate of shoot 'em ups should never drop but should remain consistent whether there are two on-screen sprites or twenty on-screen sprites -- colliding.

Shoot 'em ups that slow down to slideshows when action escalates should be crucified.

Movement in Shoot 'em ups

8-way movement connotes the vertical, horizontal and diagonal movement potential of the player-controlled unit (e.g., a spaceship). Most shoot 'em ups feature 8-way movement, but some are 4-way and some are only 2-way.

As long as movement is responsive and accurate the number of directions does not matter: 2-way movement shoot 'em ups can easily outclass 8-way moving ones.

Levels in Shoot 'em ups

A level is a static or scrolling playfield in which hostiles must be destroyed or avoided. Levels often consist of waves, projectiles, pick-ups, turrets, fortifications, obstructions, destructibles and terrain. 

Consisting usually of 20+ screens of graphics, a scrolling playfield is of fixed length and height. And if the level auto-scrolls at a non-variable rate, then such a level is completed in a fixed time-interval as well. The only exceptions to this rule are end-level boss fights and specific set-pieces.

Pick-ups & Power-ups in Shoot 'em ups

Pick-ups are static or moving objects that when moved over or otherwise collected confer bonuses or penalties. Pick-ups are recognized via color, shape or symbol. Power-ups are pick-ups that usually only confer benefits. Not all shoot 'em ups include pick-ups.

Some shoot 'em ups allow players to shoot the pick-up to change its effect; this may even incrementally knock back the pick-up. Some power-ups are tiered: the more power-ups of a type collected, the stronger the weapon becomes until its reaches it cap. A weapon that reaches its cap has been crowned.

Shoot 'em up Weapons Systems

A weapons system is an array of weapons and upgrades available in a shoot 'em up. Weapons are collected and powered-up via pick-ups or separate weapons screens. Some shoot 'em ups feature purchaseable weapons; the wealth accumulated by currency pick-ups.

Basic weapons include:

• Single-shot and double- and triple-shot
• Rear-shot, side-shot and spread-shot
• Bombs and homing missiles
• Cannons, laser beams and rockets

 

Spreads are weapons that emanate outward in cone-like fashion. Spreads make a lot of shoot 'em ups easier to play for those lacking in reflexes, but focused firepower more efficiently dispatches tankier hostiles, naturally. In some shoot 'em ups players can adjust the position of orbiting weapons pods in order to seamlessly shift between cone-like or focused firepower.

Charged beam-weapons are common: the player holds down a button, watches as the weapon charges up, and then releases the button to unleash a devastating bolt of firepower capable of taking out rows or columns of hostiles in one shot. During the charging phase, however, players are denied use of their conventional weapons system.

Some shoot 'em ups employ non-weapon abilities such as shields, cloaks, movement-rate enhancers, inertia-reducers and temporary invulnerabilties. Many shoot 'em ups employ limited-use bombs, nukes or zappers to wipe singular screens clear of hostiles and projectiles, thereby granting breathing space and saving a life. Bombs are often saved up for bosses.

Energy bars and shield bars are quite common in casual shoot 'em ups or bullet-hell shoot 'em ups that want to unleash massive waves and firepower. In some shoot 'em ups banking into hostile firepower is safe.

Shoot 'em up Waves

A wave is a formation or pattern of static or moving hostile objects. A wave does not have to move. Waves can move slowly, quickly or at variable rates; they can arc around the screen, flank or come straight-on. Waves can follow preset paths or break away and home-in on the player sprite.

Some waves fire projectiles and even homing projectiles; others are indestructible or simply cannot be dealt with in time before they move off-screen. In some of the best shoot 'em ups players learn to "leave well alone" certain waves. However, some waves remain on-screen until utterly vanquished.

In some shoot 'em ups the units of waves combine into a single object or blob that hogs screenspace, thereby limiting player sprite mobility. Wave units can also leave behind lethal organic traces and explosive obstructions that clutter playing fields.

Shoot 'em up Bosses

A boss is an end-of-level guardian that must be defeated in order to progress to the next level. Some bosses fit on one screen whereas others span several screens in size. Bosses are usually extremely tanky and sport fearsome firepower and capacities that far exceed the armor and arsenal to which players have access. Some bosses exhibit progressive destructibility that indicates their ailing status; some boss fights span multiple phases; some bosses transform.

That said, shoot 'em ups need not feature bosses to be king-tier.

Sub-bosses usually rear their heads at midway points.

Shoot 'em up Sprites

A sprite or bob (blitter object) is the graphical representation of an object that exists independently of the background (e.g., an alien, a projectile, a pick-up). I refer to coding routines that move sprites as sprite-shifting. Thus I commonly write variants of shoot 'em up X features super-smooth screen-scrolling and sprite-shifting.

Sprites can be designed to color-cycle, rotate, scale, distort, transform, combine, camouflage, invisibilize and progressively destruct.

Other

An obstruction is a static or moving object or graphic that hinders movement or firepower either partially or wholly. Obstructions commonly take the form of terrain, barriers or shields. Some shoot 'em ups focus on obstructions more than waves. Object-based obstructions are usually destructible.

A 1-up is a free life. Shoot 'em ups usually employ a fixed number of "lives" for players. When the lives run out it is "Game over, man! Game over!" -- though sometimes shoot 'em ups offer "Continues." Most shoot 'em ups reset all weapon systems back to zero on loss of life. And in some states of play rebuilding a weapons system is not possible. Thus does the loss of one life constitute Game Over.

Akin to Halls of Fame, High-score Tables are ranked namelists or initials attached to player-scores. A top score is of first-rank, numero uno. Some shoot 'em ups feature saveable High-score tables, but most do not.

In the Shadow of the Almighty Arcade Machine, aka Coinop

Note that sometimes I compare the home-computer shoot 'em up to the arcade-machine aka coin-operated original. That might sound unfair: afterall, if even the much more powerful arcade hardware could not execute a new game's code efficiently, the engineers just added more chips to the board (eg., to "up" the framerate).

It is important to remember that arcade hardware was often custom-built for a specific type of game or even a specific game, whereas home-computer hardware was not. Thus, ports that replicate arcade originals are often more technically impressive than the arcade original itself. Indeed, in rare cases some ports are objectively superior to the arcade original.

It is ignorance at best and elitism at worst to look down one's nose at a good port just because an exceedingly expensive piece of dedicated hardware hosted the superior original.

It was often possible (though improbable) to replicate coinops accurately or even perfectly on IBM PCs 16 bit micros. One could say that I always "believed in" the capacity of home-computer hardware to host 1:1 arcade-perfect ports in many cases. Proud home-computer owners wanted to Believe.

Or at the least they would expect faithful replicas that reproduced the look, feel and gameplay of the coinop in question -- but this comes down to the will and means of the respective publisher, coder, composer and graphician.

What this article demonstrates is that, in the vast majority of cases, the best Western computer-game shoot 'em ups were not arcade conversions at all, but rather custom-coded home-computer exclusives heavily influenced by American and Japanese arcade tradition. And a few of these custom-coded exclusives contended with and even superseded some coinop shoot 'em ups.

Best of all, you could blast away at home without having to line up and cough up coins at "The Arcades".

It was every young Amigan's dream to have what equates to an arcade game in their bedroom. And our dreams came true. We lived the computer-gaming dream from the late 80s to the early 90s. We played shoot 'em ups with our best friends sitting next to us, taking turns or playing coop for hours on cutting-edge yet affordable home-computer hardware. It was such a special time to be a computer-gamer; one that lasted only a few precious years. No one understands this except us. We miss our old friends and long for those times, but those days are gone forever.

Long gone.

Only fond memories remain.

MS-DOS IBM PC Shoot 'em ups (i808x-80x86-Pentium) [1.0]

The main problem with MS-DOS IBM PC shoot 'em ups was lack of flair, lack of smooth scrolling and lack of micro-switch joystick pedigree. The MS-DOS shoot 'em up reached its peaks in the very early 80s and the mid-90s. Otherwise, the Commodore 64 and Amiga ruled the roost.

Video Graphics Array (VGA by IBM, 1987)

It is no revelation that most MS-DOS computer-game developers could not code VGA very well. It is understandable, too: pre-VESA, coding 50 different kinds of VGA chipsets for optimum output is practically a rocket science: one reads a 2000-page textbook just to get a basic overview. And plumbing the undocumented depths of VGA takes more than reading textbooks (trade secrets).

And yet it is a simple matter for expert computer-gamers to detect inadequacies even when they themselves cannot code VGA: all one needs is eyes that can see and a brain that can register the likes of:

• Aspect ratio consistency by coder and graphician
• Smoothness of sprite-shifting, rotation and scaling (hardware or software sprites)
• Sprite-size, complexity and no. of animation frames
• Screen-scrolling smoothness (hardware or software scrolling, parallax scrolling)
• Color-depth exploitation (e.g., 4, 16, 32 or 256 colors and beyond)
• Resolution (VGA 320x 200 or square-pixel VGA 320x240
• Amiga-only: copper effects (plasmas)

Note that VGA does not necessarily mean 256 on-screen colors drawn from palette of 256 thousand colors. There is much more to VGA than color-depth and resolution. Thus, a computer game can employ 2-256 colors and still technically be tapping VGA in terms of screen-draws.

CGA (Color Graphics Adapter) of 1981 and EGA (Enhanced Graphics Adapter) of 1984 are IBM's older, pre-VGA adapters with which VGA is backwards-compatible in the vast majority of cases. Most CGA computer games of the early 80s to mid 90s ran in CGA 4-color 320x200, EGA 16-color 320x200 or VGA 320x200. In rare cases, coders employed non-standard square-pixel VGA 320x240 in the early and mid 90s.

The problem with EGA is not that it is limited to display 16 on-screen colors, it is that it can only draw from a palette of 64 colors. Whereas the Atari ST can display 16 from 512, the Amiga can display 32 from 4096 (as standard), the Archimedes can display 256 from 4096 and VGA can display 256 from 256,000.

While there are certainly diminishing returns that vary with graphican skill levels and other factors (such as screen-res), with increased palette range generally comes superior color-selections and smoother color gradations. EGA looks stark and stippled or dithered in comparison to ST graphics let alone Amiga graphics. On the other hand, in computer-gaming there is no need whatsoever for Hi-color or True-color at resolutions below 800x600.

16 colors drawn from a palette of 512 or 4096 at a resolution of 320x200, 240 or 256 can look absolutely glorious. The ST and Amiga proved this hundreds of times over their life-cycles. And often, 16, 32 or 64 colors result in clearer graphics and more easily discernable on-screen objects than 256-color variants. It is not about the number of colors, it is about performance and clarity.

On top of that, those with good taste prefer spartan or gritty color schemes, which lower color-counts facilitate. This does not mean that fewer colors is always better or that fewest is best; it means that there is an optimum color-count to be sought for by coder and graphician.

cf. The Advent of High Performance VGA Modes in 1990s Computer Game History.

Shoot 'em up Joysticks: Analogue & Digital Micro-switch

Unless the shoot 'em up was designed with them in mind, analogue joysticks are simply no good; they are incredibly lame in comparison to the arcade-quality micro-switch joysticks of the Arcadian and Amigan. By the late-80s the Amiga and Atari ST had access to the best mass-produced micro-switch joysticks in existence -- and they have never been beaten. Can the reader name a king-tier brand?

Chronological List of Shoot 'em ups

This is a chronological list of shoot 'em ups that came out from 1982-2000 for Intel i808x and MS-DOS PCs (i80286-Pentium) as well as the Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, Atari ST and Acorn Archimedes microcomputers. At last count 140 shoot 'em ups are covered by my commentary and infographics. And yes, I have played all of them and defeated about half of them over a three-decade period.

The first dozen or so shooters below-covered were coded for Intel 808x microprocessors. The i8086 of 1978 was clocked at 5-10 MHz whereas i8088 of 1979 was clocked at 5-16 MHz.

The IBM PC, PC/XT and PCjr. (and others) of 1981-84 employed the 8088 at 4.77 MHz; their RAM ranging from 16-640 kbytes.

This is pre-i80286 hardware (pre-IBM PC/AT). It goes like this: i808x, i80x86, Pentium ("586").

The next 140 shoot 'em ups require computational power that ranges from less than half a MIP up to 190 MIPS (Quake-level demands).

Space Strike IBM PC 1982

Programmed by legendary coder and computer scientist, Michael Abrash (Quake), Space Strike is an early clone of Space Invaders packed into a 60 kbyte PC-Booter executable.

A polished and playable fixed-screen shoot 'em up that displays in 4-color CGA 320x200 and requires just 64 kbytes RAM, Space Strike supports joystick input and keyboard control.

Cosmic Crusader IBM PC 1982

Also coded by Michael Abrash for i808x with 64 kbtytes RAM, Cosmic Crusader is one of the best early shoot 'em ups for IBM PC.

Not only is Cosmic Crusader highly playable even in 2024, but it is technically impressive as well due to the sheer number of on-screen sprites that it smoothly and simultaneously shifts across the playfield with its 60 kbyte of code. Displayed in CGA 320x200 Cosmic Crusader supports joystick input and keyboard control.

For comparison purposes with PC Booters, let's throw in an 8 bit micro shooter:

Choplifter! 1982 Apple II

Dan Gorlin's Choplifter! was initially released on the Apple II in 1982 and ported to the Commodore 64 in 1983. Choplifter! features dual-playfield action and bi-directional parallax scrolling as well as sprite rotation and strafing. In 1982-83 Choplifter! was one of the most technically advanced shoot 'em ups in terms of controls and graphics. The Apple II version supports two-button analogue joystick control.

This is the Commodore 64 version (one-button digital joystick control):

Galaxian IBM PC 1983

Namco's Galaxian coinop of 1979 was ported to i808x by AtariSoft in 1983 in 4-color CGA 320x200 (and 4-color CGA 640x400 for the instructions screen).

Supporting joystick input and keyboard controls, this 60 kbytes PC Booter requires an IBM PC compatible with 128 kbytes RAM. While not as good as the arcade-machine version, the sprites move about well and the controls are responsive.

Robotron 2084 IBM PC 1983

The Vids Kidz Robotron coinop of 1982 was ported to i808x by AtariSoft in 1983 in 4-color CGA 320x200. A multi-directional shoot 'em up, Robotron's 60 kbytes executable requires an IBM PC compatible with 128 kbytes RAM.

Robotron features 8-way movement and 8-way firing of the controlled sprite, Robotron Hero. In order to clear a stage players must destroy the Robotrons as they converge on the hero.

cf. Llamatron IBM PC and Llamatron Amiga.

Defender IBM PC 1983

The legendary Williams Defender coinop of 1980 was ported to i808x by AtariSoft in 1983 in 4-color CGA 320x200. A bi-directional horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up, Defender's 60 kbytes executable requires an IBM PC compatible with 128 kbytes RAM.

Defender supports 8-way movement and 3-button joystick or keyboard controls. It also supports the holding-down of two joystick buttons to execute the hyperspace jump.

Obvious audio-visual downgrade aside, the port's gameplay differs somewhat from the coinop as well. For example, the port features only one simultaneous abduction, no friendly fire and more generous point-rewards.

The variable-rate line-draw scrolling of the terrain is about as smooth as can be expected on i808x; that is, nowhere near the silky-smooth scrolling of the arcade-machine. That said, you can't ask for much more in 1983 on i808x.

Dropzone Commodore 64 1984

Note, however, that Archer Maclean's Dropzone on 8-bit Atari and Commodore 64 left early Defender ports in the dust. Indeed, Dropzone is the best Defender clone in shoot 'em up history. 

Archer Maclean is a legendary 8 and 16 bit computer-game coder. Another of his GOAT games is Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker.

Zaxxon IBM PC 1984

Sega's Zaxxon coinop of 1982 was ported to i808x by Sega Enterprises Inc. in 4-color CGA 320x200. An isometrically-scrolling shoot 'em up, Zaxxon's 20 kbyte PC Booter executable requires an IBM PC compatible with 64 kbytes of RAM.

Zaxxon is an isometrically-scrolling shoot 'em up featuring 4-way movement. Control is via joystick input or keyboard. Zaxxon was ported to the Amiga as Public Domain / Freeware in 1995.

Defender only features a playfield made up of line-draws whereas Zaxxon features solid-color square-fills. This is the Zaxxon arcade version:

It amazes me that many more isometric shoot 'em ups were not made for MS-DOS and ST/Amiga. It also amazes me that no one ported Zaxxon to the Amiga for 10 years.

Space Invaders IBM PC 1985

Next, we have the 1985 4-color CGA 320x200 i808x rendition of Taito's 1978 coinop, Space Invaders. The graphics are clear, collision detection is accurate, and the waves move with precision, but the PC-speaker sounds consists of bleeps and blurps (naturally).

1985 Space Invaders supports joystick input or keyboard control (Shift keys for left and right and Spacebar for fire).

Space War IBM PC 1985

Also in 1985 the Space War! mainframe game of 1962 was brought to i808x in glorious B&W by Bill Seiler. Spacewar displays its vectors in monochrome CGA at 640x400 resolution, but its line-draws are of 320x200 fidelity.

Like Zaxxon of 1984, both of these computer games have 20 kbyte executables.

Paradroid Commodore 64 1985: The Thinking Man's Shooter

Designed and coded by Andrew Braybrook of Graftfgold in 1985 for the Commodore 64, Paradroid is a multi-directionally scrolling strategy-shoot 'em up presented in top-down perspective. The object of Paradroid is to use an Influence Device to identify, locate and destroy rogue droids that have taken over 20 decks of a galactic space freighter. The droids are destroyed by shooting, ramming or taking control of them and redirecting them to attack each other.

When Paradroid came out it took the C64-gaming world by storm. It was one of the coolest and most original C64 games in terms of atmosphere, gameplay, presentation and sound effects.

Via the Console, Paradroid allows players to view a map of the deck of the freighter from top-down view as well a full map of the freighter from side elevation. The freighter is constituted by 400 screens of graphics.

The stats of droids can be viewed through the Droid Data Library. There are 24 different droids each of which is assigned a three-digit serial number indicating its capacities.

Paradroid features smooth 8-way movement of playfield as well as 8-way firing and ramming; it even employs LoS (line of sight). Paradroid's scrolling routine was improved and its gameplay was sped-up in the Competition Edition of 1986 and in Heavy Metal Paradroid of 1987.

Paradroid 90 came out for ST/Amiga in 1990. In 1993, Paradroid 2000 came out for the Archimedes. Thus, for half a decade Paradroid was a C64-exclusive.

cf. Paradroid 90 Amiga.

Ikari Warriors IBM PC 1986: Rambo Run n Gun

SNK's Ikari Warriors run and gun coinop of 1986 was converted to IBM PC Booter by Quicksilver Software. Ikari Warriors run in 320x200 EGA graphics mode, but its vertically-scrolling playing field is only 208x132px, and its audio consists of naught but bleeps and blurps.

That said, this is a great port of the Ikari Warriors arcade machine that employs screen-draw tricks and compression techniques in order to maintain a colorful scrolling viewport, 8-way firing and two firing modes (gun / grenade) on a mere i808x with 256 kbytes of RAM.

The port features keyboard control or 2-button joystick input.

Sanxion Commodore 64 1986

Let's check up on what the C64 shooter was like in 1986. Here we have Sanxion coded by Stavros Fasoulas of Thalamus. Sanxion is a variable-rate horizontal super-scroller with dual-scrolling viewports (side-on and overhead) and parallax scrolling. David Whittaker's sound effects and Ron Hubbard's music are also excellent. What we have here is one of the best super-scrollers of all-time.

Alleykat Commodore 64

Designed and coded by Andrew Braybrook of Graftgold pre-Uridium, Alleykat is a C64-exclusive shooter-racer hybrid and seminal super-scroller. Alleykat features gameplay verticality, extremely fast and smooth variable-rate scrolling, destructible landscapes, six rival craft and eight types of races, with each race-track varying in obstruction density, lap requirements and prize money.

Alleykat technical specifications are as follows:

• Virtual Sprite System (VSS)
• Flicker-free hardware & software sprites
• Auto-detects & Enhances for C=128
• 50 FPS Super-scroller
• Color-cycling "rainbow text"
• 3-voice audio
• 32 race-tracks
• Playfields 20-screens in length
• 1-player or 2-player non-simultaneous coop

Iridis Alpha Commodore 64 1986

Jeff Minter of Llamasoft coded the psychedelic Defender-like and super-scroller, Iridis Alpha, for the Commodore 64 in 1986.

Delta Commodore 64 1987

Next we have the follow-up to Sanxion, Delta. Also coded by Stavros Fasoulas of Thalamus for the Commodore 64, Delta features many rotating and spiraling enemies, tanky enemy blobs and spawning minefields.

Delta is also known as Delta Patrol and Delta Charge.

Gradius 1987 Commodore 64

Konami's godly 1985 Gradius coinop was ported to Commodore 64 in 1987 by Simon Pick. This king-tier port is fast, smooth and accurate. Overall, the speed is incredible for the C64.

Neither Amiga, ST, MS-DOS nor Archimedes platforms ever received Gradius or Salamander ports.

Light Force Commodore 64 1987

From its low-color titlescreen you can tell that Gargoyle Games' Light Force originated on the ZX Spectrum. It was also available on Amstrad CPC in 1986. Not sure why it wasn't developed as a C64 original in 1986. Afterall, the C64 had already proven itself more capable via 1942, Terra Cresta and Sanxion. At any rate, Light Force is a polished vertical-scroller and a tough-as-nails button-masher.

Slap Fight Commodore 64 1987

Taoplan's 1986 Slap Fight coinop was well-ported to C64 by John Meegan of Imagine; it was also released for ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Atari ST.

In 1987 Slap Fight, Light Force, Terra Cresta and Goldrunner were the best vertically-scrolling shoot 'em ups available on Western microcomputers.

Wizball IBM PC 1987

Sensible Software ported their Commodore 64-original Wizball of 1987 to IBM PC in the same year. Wizball is a horizontally-scrolling shooter with an innovative ball-bounce mechanic: the Wizball bounces off the ground and off objects while shooting and collecting.

The 75 kbyte executable taps into about 200 kbytes of data.

However, the original C64 version is superior in terms of scrolling, graphics and audio.

Sensible Software are most famous for their English Football Computer Games.

Uridium IBM PC 1988: Manta versus Super-Dreadnoughts

Converted by Hewson in 1988 to i808x CGA/EGA from Andrew Braybrook of Graftgold's 1987 Commodore 64 original, the Defender-like Uridium was the first super-scroller on IBM PC. Uridium was ported to Atari ST and not the Amiga, but the sequel Uridium 2 was an Amiga-exclusive.

Requiring 384 kbytes RAM, Uridium runs from a 126 kbyte executable. See that Uridium logo below? It's a full-screen scroller. :)

 

However, the C64 original is superior in terms of scrolling and audio:

Salamander Commodore 64 1988

Here we have Imagine Software's incredible 1988 Commodore 64 port of Konami's god-tier 1986 Salamander coinop.

Coded by Peter Baron, what we have here is smooth horizontal and vertical scrolling, high sprite-count (33 on-screen objects), super-fast sprite-shifting and slick sprite-scaling powered by a 6510 clocked at about 1 MHz, with 64 kbytes of RAM. And while there is some slowdown when the screen gets busy Salamander on the C64 was nevertheless one of the most impressive shooters of the 80s. The main thing is: I never lost a life due to slowdown.

The only problem is that Salamander is too short and too easy.

It is a pity, perhaps even a tragedy, that Salamander was not ported to IBM PC, ST, Amiga or Archimedes. Assuming they were coded correctly, Amiga and Archimedes versions of Salamander would not have suffered from slowdown.

Io 1988: Into Oblivion

Coded by Doug Hare of Kinetic Design in 1988 for the Commodore 64, Io: Into Oblivion is a difficult side-scrolling shooter featuring some of the best graphics on the C64.

Io's graphics were drawn by Bob Stevenson, and its audio was composed by David Whittaker. Io's weapons system consits of smart bombs that can be shot for weapon upgrades and orbs that increase the ship's defense.

Xenon IBM PC 1988: Battletank & Fighter Jet takes on the Xenites

The Bitmap Brothers' Xenon of 1988 was one of the first great vertically-scrolling shoot 'em ups on MS-DOS / IBM PC. Xenon ran on i808x microprocessors and 384 kbytes RAM in MS-DOS 2.0, and displayed in 16-color EGA at 320x200px. However, it clearly does not take advantage of the EGA palette range.

Xenon's executable taps into about 300 kbytes of data files.

Xenon was ported to the Atari ST and the Amiga with much better audio-visuals. cf. Xenon 1 Amiga version.

And yes, that is a CGA titlescreen and EGA in-game graphics.

In Xenon players battle the Xenites by ground and by air over four sectors consisting of four zones each. The player can seemlessly transform their battletank into a fighter jet, and vice versa.

Xenon Weapons System acquired via Power Pills:

• Cannon, Twin-cannons, Homing Missile, Laser, Side Lasers, Side Cannons
• Armor, Fuel, Zapper, Movement Rate, Weapon Range, Rotating Balls (max 3)

Silpheed IBM PC 1989: Destroy Battleship Gloire & the Xacalites

Silpheed is a 1989 vector-based shoot 'em up converted from the 1986 PC-8801 original by Game Arts Co., Ltd. A rare gem in the MS-DOS shooter catalogue, Silpheed employs vector graphics from a fixed 3rd-person perspective, with movement-conveyance via a starfield.

Silpheed Weapons System (Pick-ups):

• Weapons: Forward Beam, Phalanx Beam, V-beam, Laser Cannon, Auto-aiming
• Items: Weapon Power Up, Speed Up, Automatic Fire, Set Barrier, Asteroid Belt, Destroy, Shield Advance, Invincible, Bonus Score, All Repair

DeathTrack IBM PC 1989

Developed by Dynamix in 1989, the hybrid shooter-racer DeathTrack is one of the most technically advanced and well-presented MS-DOS games of the late-80s. DeathTrack is one of the first big and fully thugged out arcade-action games on the PC.

Rendered similarly to the original MechWarrior of 1989 (which is a simulation), DeathTrack features 3D polygonal graphics for its tracks, supercars and other objects. Indeed, aside from its scrolling horizon DeathTrack is a fully 3D shooter-racer.

When running DeathTrack in 16-color EGA 320x200 an i80x86 with 512 kbytes of RAM is recommended. HDD storage required: 720 kbytes.

Sky Shark IBM PC 1989: P-90 Flying Fortress

Sky Shark of 1989 is an interesting shoot 'em up in terms of presentation and controls. For example, Sky Shark features joystick, keyboard and mouse control. In addition, it features a scripted tutorial with animations. And the scrolling is smooth enough. However, the MS-DOS port is nowhere near Taito's 1987 coinop.

Requiring 512 kbytes of RAM to run, Sky Shark runs in 16-color EGA graphics mode.

cf. Flying Shark Amiga.

Sky Shark Weapons System (P-90): 1-7 Shots, Bomb, 1-up, Yellow Formation.

Llamatron 2112 IBM PC 1991

Llamatron 2112 was ported to 808x in 1992 from the original ST/Amiga versions of 1991. Supporting 2 joysticks for Robotron-style action, Llamatron is one of the best fixed-screen shoot 'em ups ever coded.

cf. Llamatron Amiga Version.

Super Space Invaders IBM PC 1991

Taito's Super Space Invaders coinop was ported to MS-DOS in 1991. Even though it lacks the arcade's vertical screen resolution, the port is solid.

Zone 66 IBM PC 1993: The 32-bit Arcade Game

Zone 66 and Major Stryker of 1993 feature scrolling that is passable but not ultra-smooth.

A labor of love, Zone 66 by Renaissance is a multi-directional scroller that displays in VGA 320x200 and requires a 386, 2 megs of RAM and MS-DOS 3.0. In terms of features and design Zone 66 was impressive for its time.

The objective of each of the eight campaigns is to destroy all air, ground and naval enemy targets using a fighter jet equipped with gatling gun, missiles, lasers, and bombs. There are also two tactical maneuvers to employ: shadow mode (cloak) and escape mode (extra speed).

Zone 66 programmed by Thomas Pytel.

Major Stryker IBM PC 1993

Major Stryker by Apogee Software is a vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up that displays in EGA 320x200 and requires 640 kbytes RAM. Major Stryker features good controls, three layers of parallax scrolling, digitized sounds effects and cinematization.

Major Stryker programmed by Allen Blum.

The Last Eichhof IBM PC 1993

Released in 1993 as freeware, The Last Eichhof is a Xenon 2-inspired shooter developed by Alpha-Helix. TLE features high-quality sprite-shifting, weapon configs, digitized sound effects and a square-pixel 320x240 VGA display. TLE requires 4 megs of RAM but will use up to 8 megs of EMS.

Even though it does not support joystick control, TLE is a king-tier shoot 'em up.

The Last Eichhof programmed by Tritone and Zynax.

Tubular Worlds IBM PC 1994

Developed by Creative Game Design in 1994 for MS-DOS and Amiga, Tubular Worlds is a slick multi-directional auto-scroller (primarily scrolls horizontally). Tubular Worlds features super-smooth screen-scrolling and sprite-shifting as well as big, multi-screen bosses.

Tubular Worlds programmed by Andreas Scholl.

cf. Tubular Worlds Amiga.

Raptor IBM PC 1994

Developed by Cygnus in 1994, Raptor: Call of the Shadows displays in 256-color VGA 320x200 and requires an i80386 and 2 megs of RAM, but an i80486 and 4 megs of RAM is recommended.

A 27-level blaster featuring seven weapon bonuses, five money bonuses and 10 purchaseable weapons, Raptor features high sprite-counts and smooth, parallax screen-scrolling. Control is via mouse, 3-button joystick or keyboard.

Raptor Weapons System:

• Weapon Bonuses: Air-to-Air Missile, Air-to-Ground Missile, Dumb-fire Missile, Energy Pod, Mega Bomb, Missile Pod, Phase Shield.
• Special Weapons: Bomb, Death Ray, Ion Scan, Laser Turret, Micro Missile, Mini Gun Turret, Mini Gun, Power Disruptor, Pulse Cannon, Twin Laser.

Raptor programmed by Scott Host.

Raiden IBM PC 1994

Raiden of 1994 was only a passable port of Seibu Kaihatsu's 1990 coinop; nowhere near arcade-quality. In 1994 MS-DOS Raiden should have been close to arcade-perfect. For example, on the first level you don't even take off from an aircraft carrier at the start; nor are there two boss units. There is just too much missing, even for a port. Still, beggars can't be choosers.

At minimum Raiden requires i80386, 384 kbytes RAM and MS-DOS 3.0.

To prove that MS-DOS Raiden could have been close to arcade-perfect in 1994, we can simply cite MS-DOS Street Fighter 2 of 1992.

Here is the Raiden coinop that we poured our pocket money into:

Desert Strike IBM PC 1994: Apache AH-64 Gunship

Electronic Arts' Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf (1994) features multi-directional scrolling of an isometric playing field. In addition to its momentum mechanic (toggleable with F4), Desert Strike features sprite rotation, strafing, and sprite drop-shadows. Its sequel 1995 Jungle Strike was more of the same.

Both Desert Strike and Jungle Strike display in VGA 320x200 and require i808386 and 4 megs of RAM (544 kbytes base memory).

Tyrian IBM PC 1995

Developed by Eclipse in 1995 Tyrian displays in 256-color VGA 320x200 and requires i80386/33 and 4 megs of RAM. Tyrian is a full-featured shoot 'em up; indeed, it includes the kitchen sink.

Running on MS-DOS as well as Windows, Tyrian 2000 of 1999 added even more features and another episode, but Quake had well and truly taken over PC Gaming from 1996 onwards, and so barely anyone gave a damn.

Running at 60 FPS Tyrian features smooth sprite-shifting, parallax scrolling and transparency effects. Tyrian also supports serial and modem networking.

Tyrian Weapons System (upgradeable):

• Front Gun, Rear Gun, Shield, Generator, Sidekick Weapons.
• Special Weapons: Retractor, Repulsor, Ice Beam.
• 2-Player ships: Dragonhead and Dragonwing.

Tyrian programmed by Jason Emery and Andreas Molnar.

Space Invaders IBM PC 1995

A belated but solid conversion of Space Invaders was coded by Paul S. Read in 1995. Coded for 16-color EGA at 640x400 resolution, this version of Space Invaders is naturally more colorful than Space Invaders 1985.

The Flying Tigers IBM PC 1995

Coded by Jay Kramer The Flying Tigers is a 1995 vertical-scroller that displays in 256-color VGA square-pixel 320x240 and requires an i80386 and 4 megs of XMS RAM.

Control and collision are fine, the scrolling is smooth, the sprites are well drawn and every projectile is drop-shadowed, but the waves are repetitive and winning is too easy. Control via joystick or keyboard.

Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom IBM PC 1995

Pop Software's Galaga-likes Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom and Return of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom were released as Shareware in 1995. Both games feature big and colorful sprites that move smoothly around the viewport in waves.

Abuse IBM PC 1996

Abuse is a stylish run and gun game developed by Crack Dot Com in 1996 for MS-DOS 5.0. Running in VGA 320x200 256-color graphics mode, Abuse features multi-directional scrolling and firing, seven different weapons, jumping, climbing, teleporters, and destructibility of walls, floors and ceilings. 

Targeting is conducted via on-screen mouse-controlled crosshairs. The controlled character can fire in one direction while moving in another (strafing). The character battles mutants, robots, turrets, fliers, mines and forcefields.

Abuse requires an i80486/DX2-50 MHz CPU, 8 megs of RAM, 400 kbytes conventional memory, 1 megs vRAM and 13 megs of storage space. Abuse also supports networking. And it can run under Windows 95 to Windows XP, not just MS-DOS.

It would have been awesome if Abuse was coded in and drawn for square-pixel SVGA 640x480.

Abuse Weapons System: Laser, Incendiary Grenade Launcher, Heat-seeking Rocket Launcher, Napalm, Energy Rifle, Novaspheres, Death Sabre.

Abuse coded by Jonathan Clark.

Stargunner IBM PC 1996

Stargunner by WizardWorks was impressive in 1996. Stargunner displays in 256-color VGA square-pixel 320x240 and requires an i80486, 2 megs of RAM and 256 KB vRAM. However, it is recommended to run Stargunner on Pentium 90 MHz, 16 megs of RAM and VESA 2.0 video card with 2 megs of vRAM.

Stargunner's graphics are prerendered; that is, models were constructed in a 3D program, rendered out as raw 2D images and then modified for game-engine employment. In Stargunner, this allows for smooth sprite rotations. Stargunner also features parallax scrolling at 60 FPS.

Stargunner programmed by Craig Allsop (Lead) and David Pevreal (Hardware).

Seek and Destroy IBM PC 1996

Developed by Vision Software, Seek and Destroy (1996) is a multi-directionally trucking pseudo-3D shoot 'em up displayed in VGA square-pixel 320x240. Coded for MS-DOS 5.0, Seek and Destroy features 360 degree screen rotation of a 3D playing field; its sprites rotate independently (as in Doom). Seek and Destroy also features helicopter strafing and tank turret rotation.

Involving the loading of seven on-board vehicle banks/bays, Seek & Destroy has one of the best weapons systems in shoot 'em up history:

• Chain gun: Single stream, Dual stream, Dual stream swinging-arc.
• Rockets (Chopper only): Dual rockets, Triple-fire rocket spread, Four Side rockets.
• Air-to-Ground Ballistic (Chopper only): Non-locking rocket, Lock-on single rocket, Lock-on twin rockets.
• Air-to-Air Missiles (Chopper only)
• Napalm (Chopper only): Single stream, triple stream, multi-stream star-shaped napalm bomb
• Air Strike: Low, mid and high impact air strike.
• Shells (Tank only): Single shell, Rapid-fire, Dual shells.
• Flame Thrower (Tank only): Single stream of napalm, long-range stream of napalm, Dual-stream long-range napalm.
• Special Weapons: Mega Missile (Chopper only), Super Napalm (Chopper only), Bomb (Chopper only), Mine (Tank only), Power Shell (Tank only), Ground to Air (Tank only).

It is recommended to run Seek & Destroy on i80486/DX2-66 MHz CPUs with 8 megs of RAM and 1 meg vRAM. Seek and Destroy requires 550 kbytes conventional RAM and 2½ megs other RAM at minimum.

Explosion, terrain and overlay graphics detail is configurable.

Programmed by Aaron Koolen, Seek and Destroy came out on the Amiga in 1993, three years before the MS-DOS version. However, the MS-DOS version is far superior (as it should be, coming out three years later).

Gradius Windows PC

In the Gradius Deluxe Pack of 1997 Konami bundled ports of their Gradius (1985) and Gradius 2 (1988) coinops to Windows 95 PCs. These belated ports display in 256-color square-pixel SVGA 640x480 via DirectX 3.0 (DirectDraw & DirectSound).

Gradius Deluxe Pack requires a Pentium 90 MHz CPU, 8 megs of RAM, 1 meg of vRAM and 40 megs of HDD space, but 133 MHz, 16 megs of RAM and 2 megs of vRAM is recommended.

Nebula Fighter IBM PC 1997

Developed by Holodream Software and released as shareware in 1997, Nebula Fighter is a horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up that displays in VGA square-pixel 320x240. Nebula Fighter features pre-rendered graphics, digitized sound effects and parallax scrolling.

Nebula Fighter requires a Cyrix 686 P150 or Pentium 90 MHz CPU and 8 megs of RAM at minimum, but it is recommended to run Nebula Fighter on Pentium 150 MHz with 16 megs of RAM and 1 meg of vRAM. Nebula Fighter supports joystick, mouse or keyboard controls.

Amiga Shoot 'em ups (& ST, Archie) [2.0]

Note that most of these Amiga shoot 'em ups ran on 1987 tech: Motorola 68000 microprocessor clocked at 7 MHz with 512 kbytes RAM (Amiga 500). A few of these even ran on 1985 tech: 7 MHz Amiga 1000s with 256 kbytes upgraded to 512 kbytes RAM.

Requiring a 14 MHz Motorola 68020 microprocessor and 2 megs of chip RAM, a few AGA-exclusives came out towards the end of the Amiga's life-cycle. These were coded primarily for the die-hard A1200 crew; that is, the crew that did not jump ship when Doom came out.

The original Amigas are powered by Motorola 68000 microprocessors clocked at 7.15909 MHz (NTSC/USA) or 7.09379 MHz (PAL/UK, Europe).

Famously, the Amiga's M68k is supported by custom chips known as Agnus, Paula and Denise. In addition, the Amiga has a built-in copper coprocessor and a bit blitter, whose capacities can be combined.

A typical Amiga playfield is hardware-scrolled and features hardware sprites and/or bobs (blitter objects) -- over 100 on-screen objects. [0.2]

Suffice it to say that it is the custom chips that separate Amiga games from ST and MS-DOS slop.

The Amiga 500 was the most popular Amiga by far. It has 512 kbytes RAM as standard but most Amigans upgraded to 1 mbyte RAM and many Amiga games run better or have more features with 1 mbyte RAM.

Most Amiga games run in 320x200/256 (NTSC/PAL) low-res non-interlaced. Some run in overscan and some run in hi-res.

On-screen colors range from 16 drawn from 4096 up to hundreds drawn from 4096.

The original Amigas were affordable to middle-class families yet they were on the cutting-edge of operating system, software and hardware development upon their release. The Amiga 1000 was so far ahead of the competition that Commodore's marketing department barely knew how to describe its capacities to prospective customers; there was no formal language that described the technology; the Amiga ushered in the age of multimedia computing.

But the opposite has been true for 20 years: marketing has a lot to say about their garbage.

Don't you miss the days when engineering spoke louder than marketing?

You should be so glad that you grew up in such a genuine and authentic computer-gaming era rather than the phony present-day era, which is full of blatant lies and obvious attempts to deceive.

See the above two screencaps? Two of the best shoot 'em ups ever made. I bet 99.9% of "hardcore gamers" reading this article haven't even heard of them, let alone played them.

It will become apparent, if one has the stamina to read on, that in the late 80s and early 90s, MS-DOS / IBM PCs were not sufficient for computer-game shoot 'em up connoisseurs: you needed to own (or have access to) STs, Amigas and the Archimedes as well or you were just ignorant of way too much. And you still wanted to keep your good ol' C64.

Starglider Amiga 1986-88

Developed by Jez San of Argonaut Software for the Atari ST and Amiga, Starglider and Starglider 2 are vector-based shooters notable for their fast and smooth rendering engines. Starglider of 1986-87 (ST/Amiga) employs flicker-free wireframe graphics whereas Starglider 2 of 1988 solidly flat-shades its geometry.

The Motorola 68000 of the ST could run some 3D computer games 14% faster than Amiga variants (8 MHz versus 7.09 to 7.16 MHz) if coders did not employ the Amiga's blitter chip.

For 3D engine context, the Falcon 16 bit simulator came out in 1987. In addition, Carrier Command came out in 1988.

Zarch Acorn Archimedes 1987

David Braben's Zarch was so far ahead of its time that it is not even funny. Zarch on the Acorn Archimedes is quite simply one of the greatest computer games ever coded.

As the first commercially-released Archimedes game, Zarch single-handedly conferred Legendary Status on the Archimedes as a state of the art computer-game machine. And to this day that legend lives on even though the Archimedes itself never took off. [0.1]

Zarch employs a real-time 3D rendering engine featuring flat-shaded, light-sourced and shadow-casting polygons. Zarch also features patchwork undulating terrain and particle effects as well as inertia and gravity -- in 1987.

Mouse-control of the Lander aka Hoverplane is conducted via thrust, fire, pitch and yaw. In addition, the craft employs shield energy, a fuel supply and a long-range scanner.

The mouse-control is sensitive and takes some getting used to: Zarch will filter casual gamers in one millisecond flat, which is a world record and just more proof of Zarch's greatness.

Note that Braben also coded Elite and Frontier: Elite 2, which are two more of the greatest computer games of all-time. Thus, David Braben is immortalized in the Pantheon of computer and video game visionaries.

Search this article for string Virus for the Zarch ST/Amiga ports of 1988. Search strings Archimedes and [0.1] for more info on this incredible microcomputer.

Plutos Amiga 1987: Space War Arcade Simulation

Coded by Derek Johnston in 1987 Plutos features smooth scrolling at 50 FPS and 2-player coop mode. However, in order to achieve that framerate the playfield is not full-screen but metal-bordered. Terrain in Plutos is height-mapped; that is, your spaceship can collide with buildings. In Plutos one must also access fuel dumps that are dotted about the terrain in order to maintain control of the craft.

Typhoon Amiga 1987

Coded by C. Sing and R. Wagner, Kingsoft's Typhoon of 1987 features smooth vertical scrolling, very fast sprite-shifting, digitized sound effects and 50 screens to blast through.

Oids Atari ST 1987

FTL's Oids on the Atari ST is a masterpiece. Released in 1987 Oids did not appear on the Amiga or MS-DOS within a relevant time-frame. Thus Oids was essentially an ST-exclusive back in the day, but there was a Mac version released in 1990.

Oids is synonymous with the ST.

Oids designed and programmed by Dan Hewitt.

cf. Thrust Atari ST 1988.

Goldrunner Atari ST 1987

Another masterpiece to grace the Atari ST, Microdeal's Goldrunner of 1987 is one of the best shoot 'em ups of all-time.

Running on an 8 MHz Atari ST with as little as 256 kbytes RAM, Goldrunner features:

• Super-smooth, super-fast vertical scrolling
• 2-way variable-rate vertical scrolling
• Destructible terrain / Proper tiled playing field
• Tight controls / Mouse or joystick control
• Well-chosen color palette
• Sampled speech / Good chip-tune music

What more could Atari ST owners ask for in 1987?

Featuring more of the same, Goldrunner 2 came out in 1988 on Atari ST and 1989 on the Amiga. Amusingly, Goldrunner 2 has a Top-99 High Score table. This is the Amiga version:

Virus Amiga 1988

David Braben coded Zarch for the Acorn Archimedes in 1987. Renamed to Virus the Amiga, ST and MS-DOS versions are masterpieces as well. Zeewolf was heavily influenced by Virus. Indeed, the influence of Zarch / Virus on computer and video gaming has been incalculable.

Conqueror Acorn Archimedes 1988

Zarch was followed up by Superior Software's Conqueror of 1988, which was designed by Jonathan Griffiths, David Braben and Chris Sawyer. Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS versions would follow in 1990.

When it came out several months into the Archimedes' life-cycle, Conqueror was only the third commercial Archimedes game-release.

Employing the Zarch engine for ground-based armored warfare, Conqueror features 12 different tanks each with 6 player-interpretable stats, such as armor, armor penetration and movement speed. Players control one tank in Arcade mode, a tank platoon in Attrition mode and utilize combined-arms tactics in strategy mode (calling in artillery and air support).

Xevious Atari ST 1987

Ah, devious Xevious on the Atari ST in 1987. This is a great conversion by Probe of the 1982 Namco coinop even though there is some slowdown when there are lots of on-screen sprites.

Xevious emphasizes drawing fire: enemy projectiles are relatively slow-moving but build up and home-in on you. Great shoot 'em up. Xevious was not available on MS-DOS or Amiga, but there was a Commodore 64 version in 1987:

Tiger Mission Commodore 64 1987

Coded by Thomas Larsen of Kele Line in 1987 for the Commodore 64, Tiger Mission is vertical-scroller with good controls, pacing and music. It takes a while for the gameplay to warm up -- be patient.

Hades Nebula 1987 Commodore 64

Paranoid Software's Hades Nebula stands as the one of the most difficult shooters on the C64. Hades Nebula is difficult for the following reasons:

• It is all-too-easy to destroy your own power-ups before you collect them
• The upgrades make the ship bigger, which makes the ship easier to hit
• There isn't enough on-screeen space for maneuvering

Thrust Atari ST 1988

In 1988 Thrust was ported to the Atari ST by Silverbird Software from the 1986 C64 original. It is notable that neither Thrust nor Oids were ported to the Amiga or IBM PC.

cf. Oids Atari ST 1987.

The Pursuit to Earth Amiga 1988

The Pursuit to Earth aka Gyrex is a 1988 clone of Konami's Gyruss (1983) developed by PowerHouse Software Ltd. for ST/Amiga. You can see from the infographic that PtE shifts around many sprites layered over a swirling starfield. Note also the power-ups that can be collected and activated. For 1988, PtE is technically impressive.

1943: The Battle of Midway Amiga 1988

Capcom's 1987 coinop 1943: The Battle of Midway was converted to the ST/Amiga in 1988 by Probe. While nowhere near arcade-quality the 16 bit versions play well and incorporate the coinop's catchy tune.

Excellent conversions of the 1942 and 1943 coinops were available on the Commodore 64 (1986/88).

Flying Shark Amiga 1988

Flying Shark on the Amiga and Atari ST (1988) are better than Sky Shark MS-DOS, but still pale in comparison to Toaplan's 1987 arcade original. Put it this way: you'd rather be playing 1942 or 1943 on the C64, shown just above.

The Amiga version was ported by Bob Hylands and Rob Brooks from the ST port coded by Henry Clark and Karl Jeffery.

Cybernoid Commodore 64 1988

Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine was originally coded for the ZX Spectrum by Raffaele Cecco. You can tell Cybernoid is a ZX Spectrum-original by looking at the low-color "C64" titlescreen shown below. Cybernoid 2: The Revenge was also developed by Raffaele Cecco.

Both Cybernoid and its sequel were released in 1988.

Top row is Cybernoid; bottom row is Cybernoid 2:

Cybernoid and its sequel are rare shoot 'em ups due to being 4-way flip-screen computer games rather than scrollers.

Cybernoid and its sequel were ported to C64, Amstrad CPC and ST/Amiga, but not the IBM PC.

Cybernoid Weapons System: Bombs, Impact Mines, Defence Shield, Bounce Bombs, Seeker.

The Cybernoid shooters share similarities with Cecco's own Exolon of 1987, a flip-screen run and gun game for ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and C64.

Exolon was ported to ST/Amiga as well. However, I disliked the 16 bit ports even more than the 8 bit versions.

StarRay Amiga 1988

Coded by Erik von Hesse & Logotron in 1988, StarRay was the first good Defender-like on the Amiga.

Eliminator Amiga 1988

Linel Switzerland's Eliminator on ST/Amiga was technically impressive for 1988. The player controls a vehicle from 3rd person perspective on 13 winding roadways with bends, crests, tunnels, jump-ramps and water canals. There are also barriers and alien-waves to blast through.

Eliminator employs vector graphics for its roadways, but its objects and aliens are sprite-scaled. Unlike the ports of railshooters such as Space Harrier (1989), Eliminator is playable and its framerate is smooth.

Eliminator weapons system: single, dual, side, double and triple cannons as well as bouncing bombs.

Operation Wolf & Thunderbolt Amiga 1988-89: Green Berets

Taito's Operation Wolf light-gun coinop of 1987 was ported to ST and Amiga by Ocean France in 1988. Its 1988 sequel Operation Thunderbolt was subsequently ported to ST/Amiga by Ocean Software Ltd. in 1989. Both ports of the sprite-scaling scrollers are mouse or joystick controlled but only Thunderbolt allows for 2-player simultaneous action.

Cabal Amiga 1989: Commandos

TAD Corporation's Cabal coinop of 1988 was ported to ST/Amiga by Ocean Sfotware Ltd. in 1989. Offering 2-player simulatenous action Cabal is basically a third-person Operation Wolf. And just like Operation Wolf and Thunderbolt, Cabal is nowhere near as fun to play as the coinop.

Cabal and the Op. Wolf ports were overrated back in the day. Put it this way: even if you bought all three you would still go to the arcades to play the real deal.

Sidewinder Amiga 1988-89

Sidewinder of 1988 was developed by Synergistic; Sidewinder 2 of 1989 by PAL. And since they were coded by different developers, these are very different shoot 'em ups in terms of controls and graphics. 

Sidewinder is especially difficult on Expert mode. Be prepared to get shot down on a regular basis.  Sidewinder 2 is also no cakewalk due to its emphasis on destructible obstructions.

ST/Amiga and PC Booter versions were coded. This is the Amiga version:

Phobia Commodore 64 1989

Programmed by Antony Crowther ("Ratt"), Phobia was released for Commodore 64 and ST/Amiga in 1989. However, I prefer the C64 version.

Retrograde Commodore 64 1989

Coded by John Rowlands and Rob Ellis of Thalamus for the C64 in 1989, Retrograde is an innovative combo of Defender-like and run and gun. Indeed, Retrograde is one of the best shoot 'em ups to appear on 8 bit micros. Beating every 16 bit shooter of 1989 except Battle Squadron, Retrograde is also a C64-exclusive.

Space Harrier Amiga 1989

Elite's Amiga port of Sega's 1987 super-scaling railshooter coinop, Space Harrier, was fairly playable in 1989, but Eliminator of 1988 was far superior.

The ST version is practically identical to the Amiga version, but its viewport is smaller (the ol' ST "sidebar"). The above image shows the Amiga version.

Thunder Blade Amiga 1988

Sega's Thunder Blade coinop of 1987 was ported to ST/Amiga in 1988 by Tiertex. As with most of Tiertex's ports, the Thunder Blade port is absolute garbage.

Xenon Amiga 1988

Xenon (1988) on the Atari ST and Amiga made the EGA MS-DOS version look like a joke. Truth be told 16-color EGA Xenon looks like 4-color CGA (but it plays really well).

This is the superior Amiga version:

The ST version was just as good as the Amiga version.

Xenon graphics by Mike Montgomery; audio by David Whittaker.

cf. Xenon 1 MS-DOS version.

Note that Xenon does not even begin to tap the Amiga's chipset. It is basically an ST game. Still, there wasn't much to choose from in 1988.

Hybris Amiga 1988

Hybris of 1988 was coded by Martin Pederson. As the First REAL Amiga game Hybris runs at 50 FPS and features super-smooth scrolling and sprite-shifting.

Hybris action is staged on a proper arcade-style playfield with overlaid score panel.

A difficult shoot 'em up with tight controls, Hybris is one of best blasters on the Amiga. Unusually, the armor-like power-ups get bolted onto the shuttle when collected, changing not only its appearance but also its movement rate, rate of fire and weapon-type.

As can clearly be seen, Hybris was influenced by Nichibutsu's Terra Cresta coinop of 1985, which was ported to the C64 by Imagine Software in 1986.

Battle Squadron Amiga 1989

Coded by an 18 year old Pedersen in 8 months Battle Squadron of 1989 thoroughly taps the Amiga chipset via sprite "predator cloaking", viewport tints and other uncommon graphics coding routines.

Hybris and Battle Squadron's graphics were drawn and animated by Torben Larsen.

Battle Squadron's non-standard 256 vertical-pixels display simultaneously shifts over one dozen projectiles, air units and ground units, for a sum-total of almost 50 on-screen objects. This is why Battle Squadron runs at 25 not 50 FPS. However, its display is nevertheless very smooth.

The sound effects are loud, raw and gritty. Best of all, its controls are pretty much perfect. Thus, it is eminently playable and replayable. An amazing shoot 'em up across the board, just like Hybris.

Battle Squadron Weapons System (Pick-ups & Power-ups):

• Nova Smart Bombs (AoE), Magnetic Torps (Red), Anti-matter Particle Beam (Blue), Magma Wave (Orange), Emerald Laser (Green)

Smash T.V. Amiga 1989

The 1989 ST/Amiga ports by Probe of the Smash T.V. coinop are passable. Indeed, playable. Especially with a friend in 2-player coop mode.

Commando Amiga 1989

Capcom's Commando coinop of 1985 was ported to 8 and 16 bit micros from 1985 to 1989 by Elite. This is the 1989 Amiga version:

The Commando movie came out in 1985.

Mercs Amiga 1991

Then, in 1990-91, Tiertex ported Capcom's sequel to Commando, Mercs, to 8 and 16 bit micros. Again, here is the 1991 Amiga version:

Both Commando and Mercs are top-down run and gun games that failed to impress me back in the day, let alone in 2024.

Forgotten Worlds Amiga 1989

The 1989 MS-DOS, ST and Amiga versions of Capcom's Forgotten Worlds coinop should be forgotten; they are terrible ports by Arc Developments. Imagine wasting your pocket money on this garbage back in the day.

Some computer game journalism said this Forgotten Worlds port was one of the best, if not the best shoot 'em ups when it came out. Laughable.

After Burner Amiga 1989

The Sega AM2 coinop versions of After Burner and After Burner 2 were released in 1987. After Burner 2 is just an updated After Burner, not a sequel per se. Two years later the Amiga received two ports of After Burner 2, one developed by Argonaut for Activision, the other by Weebee for Sega Enterprises Ltd.

In terms of controls, sprite-scaling and audio, both ports are poor renditions of the arcade machine that I did not enjoy at all, even back in the day when Top Gun was all the rage.

Midnight Resistance Amiga 1990

Special FX Ltd. ported Data East's Midnight Resistance run and gun coinop of 1989 to ST/Amiga in 1990. Midnight Resistance turned out to be one of the few decent ports of coinops to 16 bit micros. However, back in the day the ST version was much brighter and clearer than the dimmed Amiga version. But the ST version employed awful "catch-up" scrolling and lacked in-game music. Here is the Amiga version with the WHDLoad brightness fix:

While the (fixed) Amiga version is a solid port of the original, Midnight Resistance on the Amiga could have been much, much better.

 

Katakis Amiga 1990

Katakis / Denaris by Factor 5 is a solid R-Type clone converted in 1990 to Amiga from the C64 original of 1988. This is the kind of shoot 'em up where you wipe out hard-as-hell waves, yet get no power-up. And that is not a criticism. Just don't expect power-ups to get thrown about like confetti.

Katakis programmed by Holger Schmidt.

Katakis Commodore 64 original:

 

While they are both R-Type clones Katakis Amiga and Katakis C64 are very different; they are nothing alike in terms of waves and level layouts. Also, the Amiga version is way faster and harder.

Katakis bosses C64:

 

Silkworm Amiga 1989: Better than the Arcade Version

Silkworm scrolls horizontally and SWIV scrolls vertically, but both shoot 'em ups are raw and gritty, and both run at full frames (50 FPS).

Coded by Random Access in 1989, Silkworm on the Amiga is better than the Tecmo arcade version of 1988. Much better. What an awesome shooter.

Silkworm Commodore 64 version is also excellent:

SWIV Amiga 1991: Arcade-quality Amiga shoot 'em up

Sequel to Silkworm, SWIV is one of my fave shoot 'em ups. And when I replayed SWIV in 2024 it still amazed me. SWIV was coded for the Amiga by Random Access in 1991, but it was also ported to the C64, Atari ST and Acorn Archimedes. And while the ST port is no slouch the original Amiga version and Archimedes version are superior.

Silkworm and SWIV programmed by Ronald Pieket Weeserik and John Croudy of Random Access / The Sales Curve Ltd.

Commodore 64 SWIV:

Datastorm Amiga 1989: Blow 'em to Bits!

Shifting around 128 simultaneous objects while maintaining super-smooth scrolling, Datastorm is a king-tier Defender clone that came out on the Amiga in 1989. Datastorm is really well presented: it tells you everything you need to know about the game -- in-game.

Datastorm programmed by Søren Grønbech.

Xenon 2: Megablast Amiga 1989

Coded by the Assembly Line Xenon 2: Megablast (1989) does not run at full frames due to the number of sprites it shifts around its five-layer parallax playfield. Xenon 2 is one of the few shoot 'em ups in which players have (limited) reverse-scrolling control.

However, collision detection is off and some waves cheaply flank. You can also get stuck on walls (jittering); thus, the auto-scrolling can kill you.

Mark Coleman's Xenon 2 pixel art is stunning on ST, Amiga and MS-DOS. Xenon 2's levels range from pre-historic to metallic space-age themes.

Xenon 2 was advertised as having "coinop-quality action," but it only looks like a coinop in static screencaps. When you actually play Xenon 2, when you see it moving, you will realize that it does not play like a coinop because it lacks smooth scrolling and sprite-shifting. In fact, there are C64 shooters that play more like coinops than Xenon 2 does. All the Assembly Line had to do was tone down the sprite-count and get rid of the parallax to put Xenon 2 on a whole other level. I'd sacrifice in-game music in pursuit of full-frames action as well.

Xenon 2 audio by David Whittaker.

Xenon 2 Weapons System for Megablaster ("Capsule" pick-ups):

• Front Shot, Side Shot, Rear Shot, Cannons, Lasers
• Super Nashwan Power, Electroball, Mines
• Dive, Zapper, Speed-up, Power-up, Heart

The MS-DOS version lacks the digitized aka sampled Bomb the Bass soundtrack whereas the ST version has its own rendition.

Xenon 1 is better than Xenon 2 because you can switch between Fighter Jet and Tank. I defeated both Xenon games when they came out and without an auto-fire joystick (you can buy an auto-fire upgrade in Xenon 2).

Dragon Spirit Atari ST 1989

The 1989-90 Amiga/ST ports of the 1987 Dragon Spirit Namco coinop are quite poor, but the Amiga version plays more smoothly than the ST version. However, the Amiga viewport was inexplicably dimmed. Thus, I show you the ST version:

Dragon Spirit programmed by Consult.

Super Gridrunner Amiga 1989

Jeff Minter's of Llamasoft's Super Gridrunner is a fixed-viewport shoot 'em up that allows players to position their ship anywhere on-screen via mouse control. This is the 1989 16 bit version of the original VIC-20 / C64 version of Gridrunner from 1982. ST/Amiga only.

VIC-20 / C64 version of Gridrunner:

Menace Amiga 1988: Destroy Planet Draconia

Developed by DMA Design in 1988, Menace (along with Xenon) was one of the first shoot 'em ups to clearly distinguish ST/Amiga graphics from C64 graphics. But just like Xenon Menace did not push the Amiga's chipset much at all.

Menace programmed by Dave Jones; audio by David Whittaker.

Menace Weapons Systems: Cannon, Laser, Outrider Droid (max 2), Speed Up, Force Field, Shield Recovery.

Menace was ported to the Commodore 64 in 1989 by Psyclapse:

Blood Money Amiga 1989: A Maelstrom of Sheer Destruction

Also developed by DMA Design, Bloody Money disappointed me in 1989 because it looked and played like an ST game. Still, it was better than the EGA MS-DOS version.

Blood Money programmed by Dave Jones; audio by David Whittaker (includes 250 kbytes of sound-sampling).

DMA Design would later develop Lemmings and found the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

Gemini Wing Amiga 1989

Tecmo's Gemini Wing coinop of 1987 was ported to ST, Amiga and 8 bit micros by Imagitec Design Ltd. in 1989. And while the Amiga version stands as the best home-computer version in terms of graphics, scrolling, sound and music, Gemini Wing remains an average shooter; most memorable is its music.

Darius Amiga 1989

Softek's 1989 Amiga port of Taito's Darius coinop of 1987 is a joke: poor scrolling, poor sprite-shifting, poor collision detection and poor audio. It's called Darius+ but should be called Darius-1000.

R-Type Amiga 1989: R-9 Fighter vs. Bydo Empire

On the other hand, Factor 5 did a good job of converting Irem's R-Type coinop of 1987 to the Amiga in 1989 (25 FPS). Note that Factor 5 also coded the three Amiga Turrican games (see next entry).

The R-Type soundtrack was converted by Chris Hülsbeck; R-Type coded by Holger Schmidt.

R-Type Weapons System:

• Beam-wave cannon (charges up)
• Reflection Laser, Anti-aircraft Laser, Ground Laser, Homing Missiles
• Extra Speed, Shield Orbs

Turrican Games Amiga 1990-93

In terms of taking advantage of the Amiga's custom chipset, Factor 5's Turrican run and gun games are first-class. The Turrican games were designed by Manfred Trenz, coded by Holger Schmidt and composed by Chris Hülsbeck.

Turrican and Turrican 2 also came out on the Atari ST. And while weaker than the Amiga versions in terms of audio-visuals, they were still great.

• Turrican (1990, Manfred Trenz, Holger Schmidt): Ported from the C64 original by Factor 5.
• Turrican 2 (1991, Holger Schmidt, Factor 5): An Amiga-first & an Amiga-best.
• Turrican 3 (1993, Peter Thierolf, Factor 5): Ported from the Sega Genesis original by Kaiko.

 

Trenz also coded Katakis / Enforcer for the C64 and ported the R-Type arcade to the C64. Search article for strings: R-Type, Katakis, Enforcer.

Playing Turrican 2 in 1990 on an Amiga was like playing an arcade game: fast and smooth multi-directional parallax hardware scrolling at 50 FPS; big 360° rotating gun; epic arsenal; horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up segments; better music than most coinops.

Turrican 3 was good when it came out three years later, but it did not have anywhere near the impact on Amigans that Turrican and its sequel had. In fact, I can safely say that Tarzan-Turrican was a downgrade.

The original Turrican had a big impact on C64 owners. In fact, C64 versions of Turrican and T2 are king-tier run n gun games as well.

R-Type 2 Amiga 1991

Arc Developments faithfully ported Irem's R-Type 2 of 1989 to the Amiga in 1991.

R-Type 2 Weapons System:

• Beam-wave cannon (charges up)
• Air-to-ground Laser, Air-to-air Laser, Reflective Laser, Search Laser, Shot-gun Laser
• Heat-seeking Missile, Air-to-ground Missile

Also based on R-Type 2, SNES Super R-Type of 1991 was infamous for its slowdown (framerate drops).

Apocalypse Acorn Archimedes 1990

Designed and coded by Jordan K. Key in 1990, Apocalypse is a 3D shoot 'em up notable for tapping the polygon-pushing power of the RISC-based Acorn Archimedes microcomputer. The Atari ST and Amiga could never handle the raw processing power demands of such a computer game; Apocalypse is on a whole other level in terms of fidelity and speed of real-time 3D rendering.

In addition, Apocalypse employs smooth, high-fidelity sprite-scaled presentation, projectiles and explosion effects.

In undertaking a series of missions, the object of Apocalypse is to steralize planets that have been colonized by The Rakonans, which developed from a computer technology into self-aware, mobile and reproducing exterminators of carbon-based lifeforms.

In first-person perspective players pilot a flying saucer known as the Llanerk against Rakonan forces. The Llanerk is equipped with a regenerating energy bank (its depletion governed by a planet's gravity levels), shields, a rapid-fire Photon cannon and a radar with four levels of magnification. In addition, the Llanerk has energy bombs (radar-wide nukes), an escape capsule and onboard auto-leveling and auto-stabilization systems.

Yes, the Llanerk is a well-equipped and powerful flying saucer, but it faces off against massive Rakonan forces and bombardments.

X-Out Amiga 1990

Rainbow Arts' X-Out (1990) is a port of the Commodore 64 original of 1989 by Arc Developments. X-Out features customizable armadas and ships. It also runs at 50 FPS while shifting 50 objects and displaying 48 on-screen colors over 160 screens of graphics.

Project Deep Star: The Ultimate Underwater War-Machine:

X-Out coded by Heiko Schröder; audio by Chris Hülsbeck.

X-Out Weapons System:

• Three types of Missile & Jumpbomb
• Electric Claw, Claw-arm, Flame-thrower
• Drone, Drone-collector, Teuton Laser, Shield
• Up to three Satellites (moving or stationary)

The original Commodore 64 X-Out:

Z-Out Amiga 1990: Destroy Alpha Centauri

Z-Out (1990) is an ST/Amiga-only sequel to X-Out. Z-Out only runs at 25 FPS but its vertical and horizontal parallax scrolling is still smooth. Supports 2-player coop and features 12 bosses.

Z-Out coded by Tobias Binsack and Uwe Bauer; audio by Chris Hülsbeck.

Z-Out Weapons System:

• Beam Shot, Drones, Satellites
• Bouncing Flames, Double-shot, Triple-shot
• Fusion Bomb / Centrifugal Supercharger
• Flame-thrower, Streaker
• Blue-Scythe Satellite Rotation, Creep Bomb

Paradroid 90 Amiga 1990

Andrew Braybrook's Paradroid of 1985 was finally remade on the Amiga and Atari ST in 1990 by Graftgold. Thus was it renamed to Paradroid 90. Consult the C64 entry for more info on this strategy-shooter.

 

Blasteroids Amiga 1990

The 1990 ST/Amiga Teque Software Development ports of the 1987 Tengen Blasteroids coinop are king-tier across the board. You can transform between three different spacehips on the fly (Speeder, Fighter and Warrior). 

As in Asteroids of 1979 control in Blasteroids consists of rotate, thrust and fire (at asteroids and enemies). As one can glean from the below infographic Blasteroids is a full-featured and well-presented shoot 'em up.

Blasteroids Equipment: Shield, Blaster, Extra Shot Power, Ripstar, Extra Fuel Capacity, Booster, Crystal Magnet, Cloak.

Ziriax Amiga 1990

An Amiga-exclusive developed by The Whiz Kids in 1990, the Gradius-like Ziriax runs at 50 FPS. Ziriax features extremely fast-moving sprites and sprite-cloaking. Only veterans with good reflexes need apply because Ziriax is the second-hardest shoot 'em up in this history's treatment range.

Ziriax bosses:

Ziriax coded by Peter Verswyvelen.

Anarchy Amiga 1990: Fast, Frantic & Furious

Coded by Wayne Smithson in 1990 for ST/Amiga, Anarchy is a slick Defender clone with four-layer parallax scrolling, 80 on-screen objects, 48 on-screen colors and 450 separate screens of graphics.

Refresh rate can be toggled in-game between 50 and 60 Hz. On Amigas 60 Hz results in approximately 20% faster gameplay than 50 Hz ( = more difficult).

Note that Anarchy's Top-50 High-score table is saveable.

Anarchy Weapons System:

• Blue L: Laser: Double laser-fire, Gold B: Boost: Automatic fire-power
• Green C: Cannon, Gold S: Streaker, Blue D: Devastator
• Gold T: Top-up Energy Shield, Green F: Force-field. Blue N: Nuke 'em Power

U.N. Squadron Amiga 1990

Tiertex's 1990 port of Capcom's U.N. Squadron coinop shows that you can faithfully translate original arcade assets and presentation to ST/Amiga, but then fail to faithfully replicate the arcade's controls, collision detection, scrolling and sprite-shifting, which are much more important.

Wings of Death Amiga 1990: Five Different Weapons Systems

Coded by Marc Rosocha of Eclipse, Wings of Death of 1990 brings a high-fantasy theme to ST/Amiga shoot 'em ups. Its palette peaking at 512 on-screen colors, Wings of Death moves about up to 90 on-screen objects at 50 FPS.

Wings of Death audio by Jochen Hippel includes speech synthesis, digitized sound effects and digital music effects totalling one megabyte as well as support for external Centronics D/A converters on the ST/STE.

Saveable High-score table.

Wings of Death Weapons System (transformation):

• The Insect: Spread-fire
• The Bat: Circleblast
• The Eagle: Powerbeam
• The Dragon: Dragonfire
• The Gryphon: Thunderballs
  

Saint Dragon Amiga 1990: Part-dragon, Part-machine: Cyborg Dragon

Saint Dragon of 1990 runs at 25 FPS, but plays smoothly. Ported from the Jaleco coinop of 1989 by Random Access / Sales Curve Ltd., this is one of the easier shoot 'em ups to play.

Saint Dragon coded by John Croudy.

Dragon Breed Amiga 1990: King of Agamen vs. King of Darkness

Another easy "DragonLance"-type shoot 'em up, Irem's Dragon Breed coinop of 1989 was ported to ST/Amiga in 1990 by Arc Developments.

Dragon Breed coded by Tim Round.

War Zone 1991

Better than Commando and Mercs, War Zone is a fairly good ST/Amiga run and gun game developed by Core Design in 1991.

Sonic Boom Amiga 1990: The World's Strongest Jetfighter

Sonic Boom was converted to the Amiga by Activision in 1990 from Sega's arcade-original. The Amiga version suffers from non-smooth scrolling, non-smooth sprite-shifting, poor collision detection and annoying music.

 

Atomic Robo-Kid Amiga 1990

Software Studios ported UPL's Atomic Robo-Kid coinop of 1988 to ST/Amiga in 1990. Atomic Robo-Kid shifts around a lot of big and colorful sprites, but its multi-directional scrolling is sluggish and its framerate is inconsistent.

Pang 1990 Amiga

Pierre Adane of Ocean France converted Mitchell Corporation's Buster Bros. coinop of 1989 to the Amiga in 1990. Renamed Pang on microcomputers, the Amiga version is superior to the arcade original.

Alien Breed Amiga 1991

Inspired by the Alien film franchise of 1979-1992, Alien Breed is a top-down run and gun game developed by Team 17 for the Amiga in 1991. The IBM PC MS-DOS port of 1993 is inferior to the Amiga original.

Alien Breed is notable for its accurate controls, excellent graphics and difficult gameplay; it also features digitized speech, meaty sound effects, 2-player coop and responsive menu systems. Alien Breed is without a doubt the best top-down run and gun game on the Amiga.

Armalyte Amiga 1991: The Final Run

1991's Armalyte: The Final Run by Arc Developments is notable for its extreme difficulty. Indeed, Armalyte is up there with Disposable Hero.

Armalyte coded by Derrick Owens.

Armalyte: The Final Run is a remake of Cyberdyne's Armalyte of 1988 on the Commodore 64, which is much better than the 16 bit versions.

Lethal Xcess Amiga 1991: Sequel to Wings of Death

Developed by Eclipse in 1991 Lethal Xcess Wings of Death II was not available on MS-DOS: only ST/Amiga. This is a proper 16 bit micro shoot 'em up.

Lethal Xcess coded by Claus Frein and Heinz Rudolf; audio by Jochen Hippel.

Apidya Amiga 1991

Developed by Kaiko / A.U.D.I.O.S. Apidya of 1991 is one of the best horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em ups on the Amiga. Perfect controls, the music is absolutely awesome and the graphics aren't too shabby either.

Apidya music composed by Chris Hülsbeck.

Apidya Weapons System:

• Primary: Light-sword (converts enemies to flowers, which upgrades weapon levels)
• Power Blast (charged light-sword)
• Upgradeable: Spread Shot (3x light-swords), Lightning Bolt, Plasma Pulse
• Speed-up, Bomb, Shield, Drone

The Oath Amiga 1991

From Attic Entertainment Software Ltd., The Oath of 1991 is another stylish scrolling shooter with parallax scrolling, 32 on-screen colors and digitized speech. 2-player simultaneous.

The Oath coded by Jonathan Small.

The Oath Weapons System (Pick-ups & Power-ups): Rocket Launcher, Grenade Thrower, Sonic Beam, Laser Beam, Plasma Beam, Rear Attack, A-Mace, Power Beam, Smart Bomb, Power-up, Speed-up, Shield, Shield Increase, 1-up.

Llamatron 2112 Amiga 1991

Llamatron 2112 was designed and coded by Jeff Minter of LlamaSoft in 1991. Llamatron is a king-tier Robotron-like with psychedelic graphics. While its audio-visuals and presentation are unconventional, its gameplay is as classic as it gets. Best played with 2x micro-switch joysticks suction-capped to the desk: mad.

cf. Llamatron MS-DOS Version.

 

Revenge of the Mutant Camels Amiga 1992

Revenge of the Mutant Camels was designed and coded by Jeff Minter of LlamaSoft in 1992. RotMC is a psychedelic side-scroller that shifts around a ton of sprites.

Catalypse Commodore 64 1992

As we enter 1992 it is important to note that the Commodore 64 shoot 'em up is still contending with 16 bit shoot 'em ups; not so much in audio-visuals, but certainly in the gameplay department (which is the most important thing).

Catalypse furnishes one example: it is a high-quality horizontally-scrolling shooter coded by Andrea Pompili of Genias. In the infographic below, the top-left image shows max firepower and the other images show the Catalypse bosses.

Catalypse was coded in CHAMP assembly language. Its backgrounds were drawn in the character set editor of the Shoot-'em-Up Construction Kit developed by Sensible Software in 1987. Music composed by Michael Tschögl.

Enforcer Commodore 64 1992

Enforcer: Fullmetal Megablaster is an exceedingly slick horizontally-scrolling shooter coded by Manfred Trenz aka The Master in 1992 for the Commodore 64. And Trenz is indeed a master of shoot 'em ups. Enforcer pushes the C64 sprite-count to the limit; its music is also king-tier. What an awesome shooter.

Agony Amiga 1992: Seeing is Believing

Developed by Art & Magic in 1992, Agony made IBM PC and Atari ST owners green with envy due to its haunting visuals and instrumentals. Agony is stamped with an Amiga seal: one could never mistake Agony for an ST or MS-DOS game. It is impossible.

Rather than just scrolling in unchanging parallax, Agony's battlefields feature backdrops of raging seas, cascading waterfalls and blazing bushfires.

Truth be told, if computer games can be said to have "a soul" this is one of them. This game is audio-visually supreme, practically artwork.

Agony features six worlds presented in full-screen 3-layer animated parallax scrolling, 3½ mbytes of graphics and up to 144 simultaneous on-screen colors. Audio-wise, Agony features 1½ mbytes of music and sound effects, and 17 different music tracks.

In addition, Agony features 50 different enemies and six end-level guardians.

However, Agony's gameplay does not match its audio-visuals. Thus, what Shadow of the Beast is to Amiga platformers Agony is to Amiga shoot 'em ups.

Project X Amiga 1992: Pulsating Blaster

Team 17's Project X of 1992 was also ported to MS-DOS. This is the original Amiga version. Project X is notable for its fast sprite-shifting, no. of sprites, smooth and fast parallax scrolling, digitized speech and hard-as-nails difficulty.

Project X runs at 50 FPS in 32-color PAL overscan display mode, which in 1992 was awesome.

 

Project X also features a saveable High-score table. In addition, every single aspect of Project X was developed on Amigas.

Project X Weapons System (Pick-ups & Power-ups):

• Guns, Sideshot, Plasma, Homing Missile, Laser, Magma
• Speed Up, Build Up, Stealth

Project X Special Edition 93 is a much easier version of Project X that was released for the whining plebs.

Stardust Amiga 1993-94

Bloodhouse's Stardust and Super Stardust AGA of 1993-94 are king-tier asteroids-style games with sprite-scaling tunnel segments that update smoothly without overt pixelation. The pre-rendered, light-sourced asteroid sprites rotate as they move about the viewport, which is impressive.

Stardust Weapons System (Pick-ups & Power-ups):

• Mega Bomb, Gun Power Up, Smart Bomb
• Control Improvement, Shields, Points, Extra Life, Full Energy

Super Stardust Weapons System:

• Mega Bomb, Gun Power Up, Flame Burst, Smart Bomb
• Engine Power, Shield Energy, Points, Extra Life, Extra Energy

Blastar Amiga 1993: Sheer Exhilaration & Firepower

Core Design coded the multi-directional Blastar in 1993 for the Amiga. Blastar features smooth 8-way scrolling and sprite rotation, big bosses and an upgradeable weapons system. The player's spaceship is rotatated à la Stardust (see above), but Blastar also scrolls the playfield in the direction the spaceship is heading.

Blastar coded by Tim Swann.

Disposable Hero Amiga 1993

Developed by Euphoria in 1993, Disposable Hero is an Amiga-exclusive horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up notable for its extreme difficulty. Disposable Hero will humble most shoot 'em up veterans. And back in the day 90% of players would have been shot down by the very first projectile.

Awesome shoot 'em up.

Disposable Hero programmed by Mario van Zeist and Harald Holt.

Disposable Hero Weapons System: When collected, blueprints are added to the factory. In the factory, three spaceships can be upgraded based on the equipment assembled from the blueprints.

Cannon Fodder Amiga 1993

Sensible Software's Cannon Fodder is a mouse-driven point-and-click run and gun game originally coded for the Amiga. Cannon Fodder employs a modified engine of Sensible Software's English Football Computer Games.

As one the highlights of the Amiga-games catalogue Cannon Fodder features smooth scrolling, precise controls, great graphics and excellent music and sound effects.

Cannon Fodder was designed by Jonathan "Jops" Hare and coded by Jools Jameson. Its graphics were drawn by Stoo Cambridge and its audio was assembled by Richard Joseph and Allister Brimble.

Cannon Fodder was ported to ST, MS-DOS and Archimedes. Offering more of the same, Cannon Fodder 2 was released in 1994 on Amiga and MS-DOS only.

Chaos Engine Amiga 1993

Developed by the Bitmap Brothers in 1993 for ST/Amiga, The Chaos Engine is a top-down run and gun game that features 2-player coop and 8-way scrolling and firing. In one-player mode the AI controls the other soldier.

And while its audio-visuals are top-tier its scrolling is not silky-smooth and its collision detection is off, just like Xenon 2. And I considered TCE overrated, even back in the day. Just like Xenon 2.

I believe that such assets and "character builds" would have been better employed in a tactical turn-based game.

TCE coded by Steve Cargill. Graphician was Dan Malone.

Uridium 2 Amiga 1993

Andrew Braybrook's Uridium 2 of 1993 is one of the most technically impressive shoot 'em ups on the Amiga: Uridium 2 is the Amiga's preeminent super-scroller.

While its pixel art is not on the level of Xenon 2 or Apidya, its parallax scrolling is much faster and its gameplay is more dynamic due to the sudden changes in direction. Uridium also employs an impressive logo-plasma which no screencap can do justice.

Uridium Weapons System (Pick-ups): Shield, Bomb, Torpedo, Chaser Drone, Cyclone Spiralling Laser, Ionizer, Twin Laser Stream, Twin Plasma Stream, Scatter Laser Bolts.

cf. Uridium Commodore 64 original --- Uridium IBM PC.

Overkill Amiga 1993

Vision Software Inc.'s Overkill AGA of 1993 is another Defender clone. Overkill features silky-smooth 50 FPS screen-scrolling and sprite-shifting. The way one enters the next level is also inventive (via rotating galaxy-map).

Banshee Amiga 1994: A1200 & Amiga CD32

Banshee is an Amiga AGA-exclusive developed by Core Design in 1994. Most people played this on an Amiga 1200 with 2 megs of chip ram. While Banshee features prerendered rotating objects (ray-traced), its controls and collision detection are somewhat off.

In fact, Banshee was one of the biggest disappointments on the ailing Amiga platform of 1994.

Banshee Weapons System (Pick-ups & Power-ups):

• Double Shot, Triple Shot, 45° Shot, Side Shot, Heavy Missile, Homing Missiles
• Bombs, Smart Bomb
• Points, Fire Power, Build Up, Speed Up, Loop, Extra Life, Extra Shield

Banshee programmed by Søren Hannibal.

Tubular Worlds Amiga 1994: Battle 16 Warlords

Neither the OCS/ECS or AGA versions of Tubular Worlds on the Amiga (1994) are as good as the MS-DOS version, but they are still excellent. Oddly, TW Amiga noticeably reduces vertical pixels by 30-odd during boss battles. In fact, the AGA version reduces them on some normal levels as well.

cf. Tubular Worlds MS-DOS.

Raiden Amiga 1994

While Raiden on the Amiga was not shaping up to be an accurate port of Seibu Kaihatsu's 1990 coinop, it was shaping up to be a decent shoot 'em up even though it employs a sidepanel that reduces the size of the playfield. In addition, the Amiga port does not feature the original arcade music. However, there was a possibility that Amiga Raiden would come complete with a level editor, which would have been cool, but the game was never released.

Ruff n Tumble Amiga 1994

Wunderkind's Ruff n Tumble of 1994 is a prime example of a poorly designed and coded run n gun game on the Amiga. Yes, the pixel art is excellent but who cares when the scrolling and controls are sluggish? Even the sound is poorly employed: there are no gunfire sound effects for the standard weapon and no footstep, jumping or landing sound effects. Moreover, the music is annoying. And when you disable the music the lifeless soundscape is laid bare. Overall, Ruff n Tumble would be a terrible Amiga game if it came out in 1990, let alone 1994; it shows no mastery of Amiga hardware; such a waste of good graphics.

Zeewolf Amiga 1994: High-tech Gunship Action in 3D

In 1994 Binary Asylum coded Zeewolf, an Amiga-exclusive 3D shooter. Influenced by Zarch-Virus of 1987-88, Zeewolf is notable for its realistic controls (mouse or joystick) and real-time 3D rendering engine viewed from a fixed perspective.

Star Fighter 3000 Archimedes 1994

Developed by World Federation Entertainments Network aka Fednet, Star Fighter 3000 of 1994 was easily the most advanced 3D shooter of the early 1990s. This is because Star Fighter 3000 was coded for the most powerful Western microcomputer of the late-80s and early 90s, the legendary Acorn Archimedes of 1987-92. The Achimedes' stock-standard 32-bit ARM RISC-based microprocessor was clocked at 8MHz and came in at 4½ MIPS, which is five times the computational power of the Atari ST's 8 MHz Motorola 68k.

And when it came to polygon-pushing and sprite-scaling, this showed -- bigtime.

In 1994 Star Fighter 3000's polygon-pushing power and graphical detail were impressive. In comparison Zeewolf on the Amiga ran like my Aunt May after she's had to much sherry to drink.

To be fair though, we are talking about the Archimedes 3D powerhouse. It's such a pity it never took off as a computer-game machine. ST/Amiga owners knew of the Archimedes: "That micro that is so much more powerful than ours, but doesn't get that many big-name games". [0.1]

The Archimedes original SF3000 requires 2 megs of RAM and is best run on A4000 ARM3s clocked at 25 MHz + FPU. The MS-DOS version came out 2 years later (Jul. 1996), requiring 80486DX-33 MHz and 8 megs of RAM.

Star Fighter 3000 programmed by Tim Parry and Andrew Hutchings.

Deluxe Galaga Amiga 1995

Coded by Edgar M. Vigdal in 1995, Deluxe Galaga features smooth sprite-shifting and 2-player coop. It also runs at 50 FPS.

Mega Typhoon Amiga 1996

Mega Typhoon was coded by Bernhard Braun of Nordlicht for ECS/OCS Amigas in 1996. Mega Typhoon is one of the most advanced Amiga shoot 'em ups in terms of 2D graphics coding; and its audio-visuals are raw and gritty.

Mega Typhoon shifts around up to one hundred 16-color objects (bobs and sprites) simultaneously while maintaining 50 FPS -- and yet it runs on an Amiga 500 with 1 meg RAM.

Mega Typoon is a super-scroller.

If Mega Typhoon came out just a few years earlier, it would have taken the Amiga gaming world by storm.

Mega Typhoon Weapons System (Pick-ups & Power-ups):

• Spread Shot (S), Sinus Laser (L), Homing Missiles (H), Power Missiles (M)
• Smart Bomb (B), Get Full Weapon (P), Extra Life

Tiger's Bane Amiga 1997

Coded in AMOS by Seumas McNally of Longbow Digital Arts (LDA), the shareware Tiger's Bane is a bi-directional, horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up inspired by the likes of Gunship 2000 and Desert Strike via its combo of multi-helicopter combat and combined-arms tactics.

Controls are accurate, the parallax scrolling and sprite-shifting is smooth, and the sprites are well-drawn and -animated. Presentation-wise, the drop-shadows, fancy screenwipes and effects evoke the Amiga's multi-media programs. In addition, an extensive Help system is included, and there are even mouse-over image-based pop-ups (e.g., mousing over text that describes an enemy unit causes an image of an enemy unit to pop up over the text).

Tiger's Bane supports keyboard, joystick and even twin-joystick control. Tiger's Bane Weapons System: Chaingun, Hydra Rocket, Hellfire, SideWinder, SideArms.

The only "problem" with Tiger's Bane is that it came out in 1997, post-prime Amiga.

T-Zer0 Amiga 1999

T-Zer0 AGA was developed by TraumaZero Team and released by ClickBOOM / PXL Computers Inc. in 1999. T-Zer0 features 50 FPS per-pixel multi-directional screen-scrolling and sprite-shifting.

Three primary weapons and six secondary weapons are available, along with three spaceships. There are several in-game bonuses. T-Zer0 also comes with a map editor and CD-quality trance tracks.

T-Zer0 requires an A1200 030 with 2 megs of Chip RAM and 8 megs of Fast RAM, but 060 Blizzard or Cyberstorm acceleration is recommended. T-Zer0 has an install size of 250 MB, 190 MB of which is given over to FMV-based cinematization -- what a waste of time and resources: who the hell gives a damn about FMVs in shoot 'em ups? Why not just make, I don't know, an even better shoot 'em up?

T-Zer0 Weapons System:

• Primary Weapons: Laser, Front Plasma, Guns
• Secondary Weapons: Homing Missile, Side Beam, Plama, Rear Plasma, Missiles, K-Missiles
• Specials: Nuclear Blast, Stealth, Extra Life, Special Weapon, Hyperdrive, Inversion (of direction-input controls), Short Circuit
• Bonuses: Shapes, Star, Gold Star, Gems

Apano Sin Amiga 2000

Developed by Level One Entertainment in 2000, Apano Sin is a bi-directional vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up that runs on Amiga 500s with 1 meg of RAM. Apano Sin is another technically impressive shoot 'em up that came out post-prime Amiga.

Apano Sin programmed by Alex Piko and Alexander Eberl.

Apano Sin is basically a vertically-scrolling Uridium / Uridium 2. It could have been influenced by the vertical super-scroller, Task 3, coded by Cybernetic Arts for the C64 in 1987. 

Apano Sin Weapons System:

• Blue Blizzard, Bomber, Green Flash, Power Cannon

Ranking Shoot 'em Ups from 1982-2000 [3.0]

Note that Mega Typhoon of 1996 on the Amiga is the most technically advanced 2D shoot 'em up in terms of graphics coding and overall arcade-quality gameplay -- relative to its hardware demands (an Amiga 1000 from 1985). The reason I did not rank Mega Typhoon in some of the rankings below is because it came out in 1996 -- not in the Amiga's heyday. But yes, Mega Typhoon is technically (in both contexts) at the forefront, so please bear that in mind when reading the rankings posted below.

Note that rankings should be considered indicators that point the way, not gospel.

Best MS-DOS Shoot 'em ups Ranked

• Seek and Destroy (1996)
• Tubular Worlds (1994)
• Tyrian (1995)
• The Last Eichhof (1993)
• Stargunner (1996)
• Zone 66 (1993)
• Raptor: Call of the Shadows (1994)
• Xenon (1988)

You can see that MS-DOS IBM PC shoot 'em ups only became strong in the mid-90s. No Oids, Hybris, Battle Squadron, Silkworm, Disposable Hero etc.

Best Amiga Shoot 'em ups Ranked (incl. Atari ST & Archimedes)

• Zarch (1987, Archimedes)
• Oids (1987, Atari ST)
• Battle Squadron (1989, Amiga)
• Hybris (1988, Amiga)
• Disposable Hero (1993, Amiga)
• Star Fighter 3000 (1994, Archimedes)
• Lethal Xcess Wings of Death II (1991, Amiga)
• Silkworm (1989, Amiga/ST)
• Apidya (1991, Amiga)
• SWIV (1991, Amiga/ST)
• X-Out (1990, Amiga)
• Llamatron (1991, Amiga/ST)
• Super Stardust AGA (1994, Amiga)

Such a strong late 80s and early 90s line-up. God-tier.

Why did I lump ST/Amiga together? Because they were both Motorola 68k microcomputers that went head to head from the mid-80s to the early-90s. And their catalogue was very similar even though the "ST-AMIGA WARS" wanted to separate the one from the other.

That said, 68k aside the Amiga was a very different beast to the ST as it pertains to 2D computer games: much more powerful.

Both ST/Amiga were very big in the Britain and Germany during this time, whereas North America was more focused on IBM PC / MS-DOS.

The Amiga as a computer-game machine was not big in the States: most North American computer-gamers only discovered Amiga games with the advent of WinUAE emulation.

When it comes to 16 bit Western micro gaming, the U.K and Western Europe were the places to be, not the States.

Best Fixed-viewport Shoot 'em ups

• Cosmic Crusader (1982, IBM PC Booter) -- incredible for 1982
• Blasteroids (1989, ST/Amiga, MS-DOS)
• Stardust / Super Stardust AGA (1993-94, Amiga, MS-DOS)
• Llamatron (1991, ST/Amiga / 1992, MS-DOS)
• Pang (1990, ST/Amiga)
• Spacewar (1985, MS-DOS)
• Deluxe Galaga (1995, Amiga)
• Invasion / Return of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom (1995, MS-DOS)

I ranked Blasteroids above Stardust because Blasteroids basically is Stardust, but 3 years earlier.

Ok, let's take a look at the screen-scrollers:

Most Impressive Scrolling in a Shoot 'em up: Super-Scrollers

• Uridium 2 (1993, Amiga: variable-rate, extremely fast and smooth)
• Disposable Hero (1993, Amiga)
• Apidya (1991, Amiga)
• Project X (1992, Amiga)
• Goldrunner (1987, Atari ST) -- smooth scrolling on an ST in 1987!
• Oids (1987, Atari ST) -- not super-smooth, but multi-directional and smooth enough for 1987.

Most Commodore Amiga and Commodore 64 shoot 'em ups featured smooth scrolling whereas ST coders had to work harder to get it.

Relative to machine-specs and time of release the best super-scrollers are:

• Dropzone (1984, Atari 8 Bit, C64)
• Alleycat (1986, C64)
• Iridis Alpha (1986, C64)
• Sanxion (1986, C64)
• Task 3 (1987, C64)
• Uridium (1987, C64)
• Retrograde (1989, C64)

Best Multi-Directionally-scrolling Shoot 'em ups

• Paradroid (1985, C64)
• Oids (1987, Atari ST)
• Seek and Destroy (1996, MS-DOS)
• Zone 66 (1993, MS-DOS)
• Blastar (1993, Amiga)
• Desert Strike (1994, MS-DOS / 1993, Amiga)

Some vertically-scrolling shoot 'em ups feature limited horizontal scrolling and vice versa (which is often an awesome feature), but this list is only concerned with pure multi-directional scrollers; that is, shoot 'em ups that scroll diagonally in four directions as an integral function of gameplay (8 ways in total).

Best Vertically-scrolling Shoot 'em ups

• Battle Squadron (1989, Amiga)
• Hybris (1988, Amiga)
• Terra Cresta (1986, C64)
• Slap Fight (1987, C64)
• Goldrunner (1987, Atari ST / Amiga)
• Lethal Xcess Wings of Death II (1991, Amiga)
• SWIV (1991, Amiga/ST and Archimedes)
• Tyrian (1995, MS-DOS)
• Raptor: Call of the Shadows (1994, MS-DOS)
• Salamander (1988, C64)

The Last Eichhof (1993) technically only scrolls a starfield of pixels. It doesn't scroll graphics images (terrain) with obstructions. Thus, I don't rank it here.

Best Horizontally-scrolling Shoot 'em ups

• Disposable Hero (1993, Amiga)
• Silkworm (1989, Amiga/ST)
• Apidya (1991, Amiga)
• Katakis (1988, C64)
• Retrograde (1989, C64)
• Gradius (1987, C64)
• Salamander (1988, C64)
• Enforcer (1992, C64)
• Project X (1992, Amiga)
• X-Out (1990, Amiga)
• Ziriax (1990, Amiga)
• Stargunner (1996, MS-DOS)

Super Sprite-Shifters (& Bobs: Blitter Objects) [0.2]

• Disposable Hero (1993, Amiga) -- Big, fast and smooth sprites
• Battle Squadron (1989, Amiga, 50+ objects on an Amiga 1000 from 1985)
• Mega Typhoon (1996, Amiga, 100+ objects "...")
• Datastorm (1989, Amiga, 128 objects)
• Wings of Death (1990, Amiga, 90 objects)
• Project X (1992, Amiga) -- Extremely fast sprite-shifter
• Tubular Worlds (1994, Amiga, MS-DOS) -- big multi-screen bosses
• Anarchy (1990, Amiga, 80 objects)
• Salamander (1988, C64, 33 objects)

Super sprite-shifters are shoot 'em ups that move about many or big sprites and/or bobs smoothly. Thus, Xenon 2's Super Nashwan versus multi-screen bosses doesn't make the list.

Best 3D Shoot 'em Ups: The Polygon-pushers

• Virus / Zarch (1987-88, Archimedes, ST/Amiga, MS-DOS)
• Conqueror (1988, Archimedes)
• Star Fighter 3000 (1994, Archimedes)
• Apocalypse (1990, Archimedes)
• Zeewolf (1994, Amiga)
• Starglider 2 (1988, ST/Amiga)
• Silpheed (1989, MS-DOS) -- vector-based
• Seek and Destroy (1996, MS-DOS) -- not fully 3D (has sprite rotation for objects)
• Eliminator (1988, Amiga) -- smooth roadways in 1988.

As it pertains to technical specifications the Acorn Archimedes was the undisputed King of 3D shoot 'em ups from 1987-90.

If Zeewolf is a masterpiece as some have proclaimed, what does that make Zarch which came out seven years before Zeewolf? Seven years is more than a life-time in the late 80s and early 90s!

(DeathTrack of 1989 is technically an advanced hybrid of shooter and racer. cf. Motorsport Autoracing Simulators.)

Best Shoot 'em up Weapons Systems

• X-Out (1989/90, C64/Amiga)
• Retrograde (1989, C64)
• Seek & Destroy (1996, IBM PC)
• Tyrian (1995, IBM PC)
• Stargunner (1996, IBM PC)
• Abuse (1996, IBM PC)
• Disposable Hero (1993, Amiga)

This ranking pertains mainly to weapons systems that can be customized via separate screens or menus. The next tier "down" would be Gradius-like on-the-fly customization followed by customization via pick-ups.

 

Best Shoot 'em up Graphics

• Xenon 2 (Amiga/ST, 1989) -- unbeatable pixel art by Dan Malone
• Katakis (1988, C64)
• Enforcer (C64, 1992)
• Turrican 2 (Amiga, 1991)
• Turrican (C64, 1990)
• Apidya (Amiga, 1992)
• Agony (Amiga, 1992)
• Disposable Hero (Amiga, 1993)
• Seek and Destroy (1996, MS-DOS)
• Project X (1992, Amiga / 1994, MS-DOS)

This ranking pertains to graphic design, pixel art, animations and color fades -- it is not concerned with technical scrolling or sprite-shifting, which is coding.

Silkworm, SWIV, Battle Squadron and Mega Typhoon graphics are raw and gritty. Just what I like. The silvery-metallic Katakis graphics are great as well. I like the look of most shoot 'em ups that are of R-Type lineage: god-tier graphicians.

Best Shoot 'em up Music

• Turrican 2 (Amiga, 1991) -- Hülsbeck
• Apidya (Amiga, 1992) -- Hülsbeck
• Agony (Amiga, 1992) -- multiple
• Disposable Hero (Amiga, 1993)
• Xenon 2 (Amiga, 1989)
• Chaos Engine (Amiga, 1993)
• Super Stardust AGA (Amiga, 1994)

This ranking pertains only to in-game soundtrack, not titlescreen-only music. Amiga Xenon 2 has the most impressive titlescreen music. While the C64's SID is highly impressive on a relative level, the Amiga's Paula audio destroys the audio of other Western micros. Turrican 2 and Apidya have better soundtracks than most coinops; indeed, better than most computer & video games. Agony's soundtrack is insane as well.

Best Shoot 'em up Presentation

• Paradroid (1985, C64)
• Paradroid 90 (1990, Amiga)
• Alien Breed (1991, Amiga)
• Robotron 2084 (1983, IBM PC Booter)
• Wizball (1987, IBM PC Booter)
• Datastorm (1989, Amiga)
• Lethal Xcess Wings of Death II (1991, Amiga)
• Blasteroids (1990 ST/Amiga)
• Seek & Destroy (1996, IBM PC MS-DOS)
• Tyrian (1995, IBM PC MS-DOS)
• Stargunner (1996, IBM PC MS-DOS)
• Zone 66 (1993, IBM PC MS-DOS)
• Raptor: Call of the Shadows (1994, IBM PC MS-DOS)

By presentation I am referring to in-game rules info displayed by shoot 'em ups. When shoot 'em ups feature such in-game info players don't need to reference external hardcopy manuals as often, or at all.

Note that several mid-90s MS-DOS shooters were very well presented. Some even let players navigate screens via mouse-driven hardware cursors.

Some people think presentation is limited by distribution media: 5.25" floppies and 3.5" diskettes did not have much storage space. But really, how much space do scoring, power-up and enemy info-screens consume when they are merely displaying preexisting assets with appended text? If Robotron 2084 can do it in 1983, every shoot 'em up thereafter should have done it as well, but most simply didn't.

Some developers may say: "We ran out of room. We couldn't pack in info-screens or overlays." But if the shoot 'em up was coded with such in mind from the outset, they wouldn't have run out of room.

Best Shoot 'em Up Ports

• Silkworm (1989, ST/Amiga) -- it's better than the arcade original
• Gradius (1987, C64)
• Terra Cresta (1986, C64)
• Salamander (1988, C64)
• Slap Fight (1987, C64)
• X-Out (1990, Amiga) (from C64)
• Katakis (1990, Amiga) (from C64)
• R-Type (1989, Amiga)
• Virus (1987-88, IBM PC MS-DOS, ST/Amiga) (from Archimedes)
• Xevious (1987, Atari ST)
• Raiden (1994, MS-DOS)

Includes ports from coinops and 8 bit and 16 bit microcomputers.

Worst Shoot 'em Up Ports

• Thunder Blade (1988, ST/Amiga)
• Darius+ (1989, ST/Amiga)
• Forgotten Worlds (1989, ST/Amiga, MS-DOS)
• Space Harrier (1989, ST/Amiga)
• Dragon Spirit (1989-90 ST/Amiga)
• U.N. Squadron (1990, ST/Amiga)
• Sky Shark / Flying Shark (1988-89, ST/Amiga, MS-DOS)
• Sonic Boom (1990, Amiga)
• Project X (1994, MS-DOS)
• Xenon 2 (1990, MS-DOS)
• Operation Wolf / Thunderbolt (1988-89, ST/Amiga)
• Cabal (1989, ST/Amiga)

It's one thing to dump and scale down coinop ROM graphics, quite another to make the graphics scroll and move about smoothly. And quite another again to convert controls and collision detection.

It is better to tone down sprite-counts, sprite sizes and anim frames but maintain framerates and responsive controls. Note, however, that many arcade-ports needed to be completed within strict time-frames; the porters did not have the luxury of spending a few years coding their dream shoot 'em ups like hobbyists do. In addition, porters were not always supplied with ROM-dumps.

Most Overrated Shoot 'em Ups

Overrated does not mean bad. It just means that the shoot 'em up has historically received too much parroted praise, which comes at the expense of other shoot 'em ups. This isn't the fault of the shoot 'em up: the clueless fanbases and commentators are to blame.

Tyrian and Raptor are especially overrated because most PC gamers lacked C64/Amiga pedigree. PC gamers were amazed by Tyrian and Raptor yet Amigans were playing arcade-quality shooters several years before. And while C64 owners did not have coinop-quality color palettes, they did have close to coinop-quality scrolling and gameplay as early as 1986 (Sanxion). Trust me: not even the Amiga shooter catalogue would convince C64 shoot 'em up connoisseurs to shelve their C64.

Practically every coinop conversion was and still is overrated.

Xenon 2 was overrated (in the heyday) by reason of its audio-visuals yet Xenon 2 fails in much more important aspects, such as scrolling and collision detection. No shoot 'em up looked as good as Xenon 2 for several years subsequent, but gameplay is God, not graphics. That said, I sunk many an hour into Xenon 2 back in the day. It's just that it could have been so much better.

• Tyrian (1995-99, MS-DOS)
• Raptor: Call of the Shadows (1994, MS-DOS)
• Xenon 2 (1989, ST/Amiga, MS-DOS)

Most Difficult Shoot 'em Ups

• Disposable Hero (1993, Amiga) -- hard as hell
• Ziriax (1990, Amiga) -- demoralizing
• Armalyte (1991, ST/Amiga) -- cruel
• Light Force (1987, C64) -- exhausting
• Project X (1992, Amiga) -- just plain tough
• Alien Breed (1991, Amiga) -- ditto
• Zarch (1987, Archimedes) -- controls will filter casuals in one millisecond
• Delta (1987, C64) -- reflexes required big-time
• Hades Nebula (1987, C64) -- damn hard
• Io: Into Oblivion (1988, C64) -- hard

This is about fair difficulty, not difficulty that stems from poor coding or bad designwork. For example, Disposable Hero and Ziriax consistently remind players that they simply aren't good enough at shoot 'em ups. :)

As a rule, Amiga shoot 'em ups are harder and run faster than IBM PC and 8-bit micro shooters. For example, if a shooter is on both the C64 and Amiga, the Amiga version is often harder and runs faster.

Thus, when it comes to shooters, it is best to start off with the C64; as a rule, they are simple, fun and beatable whereas many Amiga shoot 'em ups can only be beaten by hardcore gamers.

List of Shoot 'em Ups With Mouse Control

• Zarch / Virus (1987-88, Archimedes, ST, Amiga, MS-DOS)
• Conqueror (1988, Archimedes, ST, Amiga, MS-DOS)
• Battle Squadron (1989, Amiga)
• Goldrunner (1987, ST/Amiga)
• Star Fighter 3000 (1994, Archimedes)
• Tubular Worlds (1994, MS-DOS)
• Zeewolf (1994, Amiga)
• Tyrian (1995, MS-DOS)
• Raptor: Call of the Shadows (1994, MS-DOS)
• Nebula Fighter (1997, MS-DOS)
• Super Gridrunner (1989, ST/Amiga)
• Sky Shark (1989, MS-DOS)
• After Burner 2 (1989, Amiga, Argonaut version only)

VGA's hardware cursors made all the difference in MS-DOS shooters that featured mouse control.

Conclusion on Shoot 'em Ups: 1982-2000

Overall, relative to hardware-specs, it could be argued that the best shoot 'em up for Western computer-game machines is Oids of 1987 by FTL. Indeed, I would say that Oids is one of the best shoot 'em ups in genre-history.

Oids is a masterpiece in terms of controls, presentation and playability. And it ran on an affordable 8 MHz Atari 520 ST FM with 512 kbytes RAM.

The argument against Oids is that Oids was incremental on Thrust (BBC Micro 1986), which was incremental on Gravitar (Atari Inc., 1982), which was a revolution on Asteroids (Atari Inc., 1979).

David Braben's Zarch of 1987, on the other hand, constitutes a more profound revolution due to its stunning real-time 3D rendering engine and ingenenious control system. Therefore, Zarch can rightfully claim the crown without even taking into account its incalculable influence on computer-gaming.

My personal faves are Hybris, Battle Squadron, Silkworm and SWIV on the Amiga. However, many of these shoot 'em ups are fondly remembered by me -- even some of the poor ports.

As a shoot 'em up aficionado in the late 80s and early 90s, you were much better off with a C64 or Amiga than you were with an MS-DOS IBM PC. But even with the advent of mid-90s shoot 'em ups you were still better off with an Amiga. Indeed, the Amiga held the fort even as shoot 'em ups gave way to Quake in 1996.

In addition, early 90s shoot 'em up connoisseurs kept their C64s as well due to the C64's vast library of high-quality shooters that were not available on any other other Western micro or PC. Yes, the C64 was outdated in terms of tech by the late 80s, but its games-catalogue would not become outdated, ever.

[0.1]

The Acorn Archimedes: Polygon-pushing Powerhouse

Back in the late 80s and early 90s of Western computer-game history, there existed a microcomputer that was quite a bit more powerful (and expensive) than other micros of the era, but the other micros were more popular and therefore had a more extensive computer-game catalogue; that is, they got more exclusives and more ports.

Owners of these "lesser" micros kept an eagle eye on this more powerful micro, which astonished them with its raw processing power that allowed it to smoothly and quickly scale 2D images as well as push around polygons at high framerates, and in high fidelity.

This micro hosted David Braben's Zarch of 1987, which is one of the greatest computer games of all-time. About a year later Zarch was ported to the Amiga under the name of Virus. And while Amiga Virus was considered a great port of the original, in comparison to Zarch it ran like my Aunt May after she's had too much sherry to drink.

Thus did this powerful micro became legendary via Zarch alone, to say nothing of its other 3D games.

This powerful micro, of course, was the RISC-based powerhouse known as the Acorn Archimedes.

It was a beast.

cf.

• History of 1990 Computer Games
• Computer Games Listed in Chronological Order
• Best Amiga Games
• WinUAE Amiga Emulation
• Computer Game Reviews
• cRPG Blog (Master Index)