History of Shoot 'em ups 1976-2000

History of Shoot 'em Ups

[Header image: Agony Amiga 1992 Art and Magic.]

This history of shoot 'em ups spans 1976-2000, but it is mostly concerned with mid-80s to mid-90s shoot 'em ups that were coded for Western computer-game machines.

However, where applicable I cover ports of foreign shooters to the IBM PC & Western-manufactured 8-, 16- and 32-bit microcomputers.

Since their shoot 'em ups dominated on Western home computers, I am mostly concerned with British, German and North American shoot 'em ups.

From History of Computer Games 1976-2024:

The Shoot 'em up is The Grandfather of Computer-game Genre and the God of Gameplay. On microcomputers the shoot 'em up was the first genre to consistently feature good gameplay and push the limits of hardware (1976-82). Early card games, Yea or Nay cRPGs and block-breakers did not push hardware as much as shoot 'em ups did because shoot 'em ups feature more simultaneous on-screen objects and the highest frequency of man-machine interaction. In addition, most shoot 'em ups were written in fast and robust machine code language, not slow and breakable Basic.

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.

This article references over 200 shoot 'em ups that appeared on one dozen different computer-game machines. But since some readers prefer reading commentary on shoot 'em ups with little in the way of cross-platform admixture, I have published a few single-platform articles; namely:

• History of TRS-80 Shoot 'em ups 1978-1983 (21 shoot 'em ups)
• History of Commodore 64 Shoot 'em ups 1982-1993 (88 shoot 'em ups)
• History of Amiga Shoot 'em ups 1987-2000 (83 shoot 'em ups)
• History of IBM PC Shoot 'em ups 1982-1997 (37 shoot 'em ups)

You can also limit your reading to shooters that spawned genre, subgenre or styles of gameplay and game mechanics:

• Invader-likes: clones and ports of Taito's Space Invaders 1978
• Galaxian-likes: clones and ports of Namco's Galaxian 1979
• Asteroids-likes: clones and ports of Atari's Asteroids 1979
• Berzerk-likes: clones and ports of Stern Electronics' Berzerk 1980
• Defender-likes: clones and ports of Williams' Defender 1981
• Scramble-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Scramble 1981
• Galaga-likes: clones and ports of Namco's Galaga 1981
• Robotron-likes: clones and ports of Vid Kidz's Robotron 1982
• Xevious-likes: clones and ports of Namco's Xevious 1982
• Gravitar-likes: clones and ports of Atari's Gravitar 1982
• Gyruss-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Gyruss 1983
• Gradius-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Gradius 1985
• Commando-likes: clones and ports of Capcom's Commando 1985
• Salamander-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Salamander 1986
• R-Type-likes: clones and ports of Irem's R-Type 1987

However, please consider the content in the above two bulleted lists to be WiP. And please understand that shoot 'em ups are an immense subject to cover: this is the Grandfather of all computer & videogame genre.

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

• "Wow, this shooter is great. But the Commodore 64 hosted 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.

This document was last updated on November 26, 2024.

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".

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 did not take off as a computer-game machine.

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 the above-linked 1976-2024 Computer-game History as well as 1990s Computer Game History. Even if you are a veteran computer-gamer such articles may be of interest to you.

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 Western home computers.

This 20,000-word history of shoot 'em ups contains over 200 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 over 200 shoot 'em up infographics.

To see the infographics in scaled resolution (2k-5k px), right-click and open in a new tab. Each infographic has been 100% pixel-perfect centered with exact pixel-perfect spacing betweeen images.

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-screen 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
• Run and gun games (Run n Gun: Rambo, Robocop, Commando etc.)
• 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)

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-screen 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, but this is their origin.

Screen-scrolling in Shoot 'em ups

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

• Konami's Scramble of 1981 was the first auto-horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up
• Namco's Xevious of 1982 was the first auto-vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up
• Williams' Defender of 1981 was the first bi-directional push-scroller & super-scroller

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 smooth, fast and/or variable-rate scrolling super-scrollers.

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 rather remain consistent whether there are two on-screen sprites or twenty on-screen sprites -- colliding.

Shoot 'em ups that slow down to slideshows aka enter into a bullet-time mode when the action escalates should get 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 can easily outclass 8-way.

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 cap is reached. 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 focused and unfocused firepower, as in Salamander-likes.

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, such as aliens. While waves do not have to move, they usually move slowly, quickly or at variable rates as they 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

[Image: Andor Genesis Boss in Xevious of 1982.]

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 Shoot 'em up Concepts

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." 1-ups are usually granted upon reaching certain scores, which increase by destroying hostiles.

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 (as early as the late-70s), but most do not.

Shoot 'em up Origins

The origins of the shoot 'em up probably lie in Space War of 1962 on the PDP-1 mainframe (cf. IBM PC version of Space War), but there could have been analog shooters before that displayed on oscilloscopes.

Sol-20 Target 1976 originated the artillery shooter; it predates Atari's Missile Command by three years.

Taito's Space Invaders of 1978 is generally considered to be the genre-defining shoot 'em up; it drew from Atari's Breakout of 1976 and Taito's Gun Fight of 1975. Gun Fight employed multi-directional dual-stick firing in 1975 which Vid Kidz's Robotron 2084 of 1982 expanded upon.

From Space Invaders comes Namco's Galaxian of 1979 and Galaga of 1981, which led to Xevious of 1982 and the vertical-scoller in general.

In 1979 Atari released Asteroids which spawned the likes of Thrust, Oids and Zarch on the micros via Atari's Gravitar of 1982.

Stern's Berzerk of 1980 led to the run and gun genre as well as Apple 2 Castle Wolfenstein, which eventually led to the Doom FPS.

Konami's Scramble of 1981 and Williams' Defender of 1981 originated the horizontal-scroller, which led to Konami's Gradius of 1985 and Irem's R-Type of 1987.

Defender led to the super-scroller as well.

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 and 8, 16 and 32 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 PC Booter and MS-DOS shoot 'em up reached its peaks in the very early 80s and the mid-90s. Otherwise, the Commodore 64 and Commodore 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 just 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 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 256-color 320x200. In rare cases, coders employed non-standard square-pixel VGA 320x240 in the early and mid 90s (as well as other odd resolutions). Some of the most technically-impressive 2D MS-DOS games employed non-standard resolutions; in fact, the same goes for the Amiga.

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 256K.

Cases existed in which developers chose inferior color schemes for Amiga-originals based on the fact that the original was to be subsequently ported to EGA PCs.

While there are certainly diminishing returns that vary with graphician skill levels and other factors (such as screen-res), with increased palette range generally comes superior color-selections and smoother color gradients. Even some of the best EGA graphics look stark and stippled 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 320x200/240/256 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.

It should be pointed out that it is not just about the number of colors on offer within a palette range, but also the specific colors on offer within a palette range. A limited color range can be fine and even preferable if the palette offers interesting colors.

cf. Advent of the API -- Advent of High Performance VGA Modes -- Best IBM PC Game.

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

Unless the shoot 'em up was designed with them in mind from the outset, 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 IBM PCs (i80286-Pentium) as well as the Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, Atari ST and Acorn Archimedes computer-game machines. At last count 170 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 IBM PC 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 170 shoot 'em ups require computational power that ranges from less than half a MIP up to 190 MIPS (Quake-level demands).

Target Sol-20 1976

The first home computer shoot 'em up was Steven Dompier's Target aka TARG of 1976/77 on the Sol-20 microcomputer of 1976. Processor Technology Corporation's Target predates Atari's Missile Command by at least three years.

Running in 4K of RAM and 1K of vRAM, Target features 5-step missile launcher rotation, rapid-fire missile-launching and waves of invading spaceships that move horizontally on the playfield in both directions. When hit by missiles the spaceships explode and plummet to the ground. The spaceships are represented by cycling ASCII characters that look more realistic in motion, especially when we consider the "clarity" of mid-1970s screens. :)

Depth Charge Apple 2 1978

Chris Oberth coded Depth Charge for the Apple 2 in 1978. Depth Charge is based on the original Gremlin Industries coinop of 1977, Depthcharge. Depth Charge is one of the earliest commerical coinop clones to appear on a home computer. In Depth Charge the player controls a Destroyer with 2-way left-right movement. The Destroyer can drop depth charges that hit the submarines lurking below the surface. The 2-way-moving subs can also fire upwards at the Destroyer.

Jerry Kotler coded an IBM PC version of Depth Charge in 1982:

Super Invader Apple 2 1979

M. Hata coded Super Invader for the Apple 2 in 1979. Super Invader and TRS-80 Alien Invasion are the earliest commerical home-computer clones of Taito's Space Invaders of 1978.

Super Invader is also known as Apple Invader and Cosmos Mission.

Star Cruiser Apple 2 1980

Star Cruiser is an early Galaxian-like programmed in assembly language by Nasir Gebelli of Sirius Software for the 32K Apple 2 in 1980. Star Cruiser plays well and its colorful sprites are impressive for 1980.

Cosmic Fighter TRS-80 1980

Bill Hogue & Jeff Konyu's Cosmic Fighter of 1980 on the TRS-80 is a responsive, playable and well-presented fixed-screen shooter that evokes Gremlin's Astro Blaster coinop of the same year.

Refer to TRS-80 Shoot 'em ups for more late 70s and early 80s shooters on the TRS-80.

Protector Atari 8 bit 1981

Mike Potter coded the Defender-inspired Protector for Atari 8 bits in 1981. Protector features exacting controls and smooth variable-rate bi-directional horizontal scrolling. In terms of gameplay and audio-visuals Protector is the best shooter of 1981.

Gorgon Apple 2 1981

Gorgon is an early Defender-like programmed in assembly language by Nasir Gebelli of Sirius Software for the 32K Apple 2 in 1981. The impressive graphics were drawn in E-Z Draw by Michael Carroll. 4-way movement of the spaceship, not 8-way.

.

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.

Choplifter! 1982 Apple II

Dan Gorlin's awesome Choplifter! was initially released on the Apple 2 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 original Apple II version supports two-button analogue joystick for finer control of the chopper.

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

The scrolling on both versions is not smooth, however.

Galaga Commodore 64 1982

Henrik Wening's rendition of Galaga might not have looked like much even in 1982, but its controls are responsive and its gameplay is fast and fun. I booted this up in 2024 and played it for a few hours.

Sea Dragon TRS-80 1982

Wayne Westmorland & Terry Gilman coded the famous Sea Dragon in 1982 for the TRS-80.

What made Sea Dragon interesting was the submarine's air supply, indicated by an on-screen gauge. The air supply is refilled by moving up to the surface, which sounds easy enough, but the problem is that some of the underwater caverns are quite long indeed, forcing the player to manage their life-support system efficiently (and search for "air pockets").

The sub can move in 8 directions while firing torpedoes horizontally across the screen at rising, tethered and stationary mines. The tethered mines can block off half of the vertical screen-space, which may already be reduced by terrain. Suffice it to say that the original TRS-80 Sea Dragon is extremely, extremely difficult even on Novice setting, let alone Expert.

 

Sea Dragon is a TRS-80-original shoot 'em up; that is, it was coded originally for the TRS-80 and subsequently ported to various other micros. Some ports were "enhanced" and/or featured decreased difficulty.

Commodore 64 version of 1984:

Wizard of Wor Commodore 64 1982

Midway's Wizard of Wor coinop of 1981 was ported to the C64 in 1982 by Jeff Bruette for Commodore. A Berzerk-like (Stern Electronics, 1980), Wizard of Wor is a highly playable fixed-screen run n gun maze-shooter featuring 2-player coop, smooth sprite-shifting and 4-way movement and firing.

cf. Castle Wolfenstein Apple 2.

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.

Galaxian Commodore 64 (1984):

Robotron 2084 IBM PC 1983

The Vid Kidz Robotron 2084 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.

Robotron 2084 Commodore 64 (1984):

cf. Llamatron IBM PC and Llamatron Amiga.

Defender IBM PC 1983

The legendary Williams Defender coinop of 1981 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.

Defender Commodore 64 (1983):

Protector 2 Commodore 64 1983

Ken Rose ported Mike Potter's Atari 8 bit Protector 2 of 1982 to the C64 in 1983. Protector 2 is a great Defender-like.

Vortex BBC Micro 1983

Coded for the BBC Micro in 1983 by Simon Vout, Vortex is a Gyruss-like that features sprite-scaled spaceships and planets moving quickly over a starfield tube. Vortex displays in medium resolution monochrome Mode 4.

Starship Command BBC Micro 1983

Also coded in 1983 for the BBC Micro in Mode 4, Peter Irvin's Starship Command is a top-down trucking Asteroids-like featuring 360° rotation, firing and ramming over a scrolling starfield. Nice.

Jetpac  ZX Spectrum 16k 1983

Let's check up on the ZX Spectrum shoot 'em up in 1983. Coded by Chris Stamper of Ultimate Play the Game, in controlling Jetman the object of Jetpac is to rebuild and fuel a rocket while fighting off aliens on a fixed-screen, horizontally-wrapping-around playfield. Note the vibrant colors and clarity of ZX Spectrum graphics.

Lunar Jetman ZX Spectrum 48k 1983

Lunar Jetman is Ultimate Play the Game's sequel to Jetpac, but Lunar Jetman scrolls horizontally and includes a driveable Lunar Rover. You can't ask for much more in 1983 on the Speccy.

Gorf Commodore 64 1983

Eric Cotton ported Midway's Gorf coinop of 1981 to Commodore 64 in 1983. Gorf is an advanced Space Invaders / Galaxian clone that features Astro Battle, Laser Attack, Space Warp and Flagship attack waves. C64 Gorf is better than the flickering VIC-20 and Atari 8 bit versions of 1982.

Scramble 64 Commodore 64 1983

Developed by Interceptor Software for the C64 in 1983, Scramble 64 is a clone of Konami's 1981 coinop, Scramble. And while its horizontal scrolling is not smooth the gameplay of the original has been faithfully replicated, and the sound effects are raw and realistic.

Guardian Commodore 64 1984

Steve Evan's Guardian was the first fast and busy Defender clone on the C64. Most impressive.

Hi-Tec's Guardian 2: Revenge of the Mutants of 1990 was solid as well, but it came out too late in the C64's life-cycle:

Dropzone Commodore 64 1984

Archer Maclean's Dropzone on 8-bit Atari and Commodore 64 left most early Defender ports and clones in the dust. Indeed, Dropzone is the one of the best Defender clones and one of the best super-scrollers 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 features 4-way movement on the playfield. 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.

Zaxxon Commodore 64 (1984) is more faithful to the coinop than the PC Booter:

Moon Patrol Commodore 64 1984

Meh, Moon Patrol. Jump over a crater and land square on a tank round. Ho-hum.

Xevious Apple 2 1984

Dan Hewitt ported Namco's Xevious of 1982 to 16K Apple 2 in 1984. This is a very good port; the best coinop port on the Apple 2.

Gyruss Commodore 64 1984

Joe Hellesen of Parker Bros. converted Konami's Gyruss coinop of 1983 to the Commdore 64 in 1984. A fixed-screen tube-shooter with scaling sprites and J.S. Bach music, Gyruss on the Commodore 64 is top-tier.

Ancipital Commodore 64 1984

The goat-like Ancipital is launching bananas that rebound off walls and hit hostile oddities. Can you guess the programmer's name? The Ancipital can also jump from wall to wall while progressing through a 10x10 maze made up of 100 levels. A responsive, fun and challenging shooter featuring psychedelic stroboscopic effects, Ancipital was coded by Jeff Minter of Llamasoft -- a legend.

Invaders IBM PC 1985

Invaders of 1985 is a 4-color CGA 320x200 i808x clone 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 Invaders supports joystick input or keyboard control (Shift keys for left and right and Spacebar for fire).

River Raid 1985 IBM PC Booter

Steve Hendricks ported Activision's River Raid of 1982 to IBM PC Booter in 1985. And while River Raid's ho-hum gameplay was most certainly old hat by 1985, the IBM PC version would not have gone by unplayed on such a platform. River Raid is a vertically-scrolling Scramble-like originally coded by Carol Shaw for the Atari VCS/2600.

Space War IBM PC 1985

Also in 1985 the Space War! PDP-1 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

Crazy Comets Commodore 64 1985

Famous for its super-fast and super-smooth sprite-shifting, Simon Nichol's Crazy Comets is a solid clone of Gottlieb's Mad Planets coinop of 1983. cf. Mega-Apocalypse (the sequel). Audio by Rob Hubbard.

Airwolf Commodore 64 1985

Airwolf is based on the TV series of 1984-87. Neil A. Bate's Commodore 64 multi-directional shooter of 1985 is more entertaining, though.

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 runs 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 coinop in that it 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.

The C64 version of Ikari Warriors features better presentation and is much harder than the PC-Booter version; it often displays a dozen on-screen soldiers and several bullets simultaneously, clogging the playfield with action.

Sanxion Commodore 64 1986

Yep, the C64 is really picking up the pace now.

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 Rob Hubbard's music are also excellent.

Alleykat Commodore 64 1986

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 tech-specs 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

 

Uridium Commodore 64 1986

Thrust Commodore 64 1986

Jeremy C. Smith's Thrust was inspired by Atari's Gravitar coinop of 1982. The only problem with Thrust is that its control is keyboard-only. cf. Oids Atari ST.

The original Thrust on the BBC Micro, coded by Jeremy C. Smith:

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. As with all Minter's games the playability is 10/10.

Gauntlet Commodore 64 1986

Atari Games' Gauntlet coinop of 1985 was ported to C64 by Bob Armour of Gremlin Graphics for US Gold in 1986. Gauntlet is an 8-way run n gun and hack n slash game that features smooth scrolling and a max of 50 on-screen sprites with no slowdown.

Gauntlet 2 was ported to the C64 by Stuart Gregg in 1987; the isometric Gauntlet 3 was ported to C64 by Martin Howarth in 1991.

Rambo Commodore 64 1986

Platinum Productions' Rambo: First Blood Part II on the Commodore 64 was impressive in 1986. A run and gun game, Rambo featured 8-way scrolling, movement and firing as well as six weapons, good music and 2-stage destructibility of trees and buildings. You can basically just flatten everything. And that's fun.

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. King-tier.

Audio by Rob Hubbard.

Hunter's Moon Commodore 64 1987

Martin Walker of Thalamus coded Hunter's Moon in 1987 for the C64.

Hunter's Moon is multi-directional shooter perfection.

Gradius 1987 Commodore 64

Konami's Gradius coinop of 1985 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 on the Speccy, Amstrad and C64 is a polished vertical-scroller and a tough-as-nails button-masher, but the Speccy version is the hardest of the lot.

Audio by Rob Hubbard.

The ZX Spectrum version of Light Force lacks smooth scrolling and sprite-shifting; it's basically a different shooter, but still great.

The Amstrad CPC version is non-smooth as well.

Bulldog Commodore 64 1987

Coded by Andrew Green of Gremlin Graphics in 1987, Bulldog is an original and innovative bi-directionally scrolling shooter for the C64. Give this one a whirl, for sure.

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.

Zynaps Commodore 64 1987

Zynaps is a busy, noisy and grueling horizontally-scrolling shooter designed and coded by Dominic Robinson and John Cumming for the Speccy and C64. There are also CPC and 16 bit versions. In Zynaps you can increase the thrust and rate-of-fire of your Scorpion. The Zynaps Weapons System includes Pulse Laser, Plasma Bombs, Homing Missiles and Seeker Missiles. Zynaps is one of the best side-on shooters on the C64.

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.

Airwolf 2 Commodore 64 1987

The C64 version of Airwolf 2 was coded by Stuart A. Cook in 1987. Average.

Mega-Apocalypse Commodore 64 1987

Coded by Simon Nicol of Martech Games Ltd. in 1987, Mega-Apocalypse is a technically impressive fixed-screen multi-directional shoot 'em up that was originally coded for the C64, but later ported to ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and BBC Micro (1988-89). An incremental evolution on Martech's own Crazy Comets of 1985, Mega-Apocalypse features 5-channel sound, sprite rotation, strafe-firing, and super-fast hostiles gliding smoothly over a swirling starfield.

Due to the sheer speed and tendency of hostiles to home-in on the player's ship, Mega-Apocalypse is by no means a cakewalk. In fact, it is going to filter most people during the first level. The best advice I can give is: learn to circle fast-moving hostiles. You could also try 2-player coop.

Soundtrack and sampled sound and speech by Rob Hubbard.

Uridium IBM PC 1988

Salamander Commodore 64 1988

IO: Into Oblivion Commodore 64 1988

Coded by Doug Hare of Kinetic Design in 1988 for the C64, IO: Into Oblivion is a difficult side-scrolling shooter that features 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. IO Bosses:

Armalyte Commodore 64 1988

Cyberdyne's Armalyte of 1988 on the Commodore 64 is much better than the 16 bit versions. Indeed, in regards to gameplay, graphics and technics C64 Armalyte is one of the best shooters in this entire treatment range. Don't pass over this one.

Designed and coded by Dan Phillips, Armalyte is the sequel to C64 Delta.

Armalyte bosses:

Xenon IBM PC 1988

Contra IBM PC 1988

John Siegesmund of Banana Development ported Konami's Contra coinop of 1986 to IBM PC in 1988. Contra is displayed in 4-color CGA or 16-color CGA+ 320x200. Choppy scrolling. The in-game setup menu is displayed in 640x400.

Sidewinder IBM PC 1988

James McBride of Synergistic Software coded Sidewinder for IBM PC MS-DOS in 1988.

Sidewinder displays in 16-color EGA 320x200. And while its playfield may seem small at 248x200, it also scrolls horizontally to a degree, not just vertically, which means Sidewinder actually features more effective screenspace than most other v-shooters.

Cabal IBM PC 1989

Wesley Hildebrandt of Interactive Designs ported TAD Corporation's Cabal coinop of 1988 to IBM PC in 1989. Cabal is a 3rd-person, fixed-screen run and gun game that displays in 16-color EGA. Graphics by Jennie Lee, music by Scott Etherton.

Blasteroids IBM PC 1989

Atari Games Corporation ported Tengen's Blasteroids coinop of 1987 to IBM PC in 1989. A full-featured Asteroids-like with good controls and presentation, Blasteroids displays in 4-color CGA, 16-color EGA or 256-color VGA graphics modes.

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.

Alien Syndrome IBM PC 1989

HSP of SEGA Enterprises Ltd. ported Sega's Alien Syndrome coinop of 1987 to IBM PC MS-DOS in 1989. The port is coded well and displayed in EGA graphics mode. Audio-visuals by Tahir Rashid.

Tim Rogers coded the C64 version in 1988:

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.

Super Contra IBM PC 1990

Eric Freytag of Distinctive Software Inc. ported Konami's Super Contra coinop of 1988 to IBM PC in 1990. Super Contra is displayed in 16-color EGA 320x200. Choppy scrolling. Graphics by DSI Art Team.

Wing Commander IBM PC 1990

Wing Commander 2 IBM PC 1991

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.

Duke Nukem IBM PC 1991

Duke Nukem 2 IBM PC 1993

Overkill IBM PC 1992

Ste Cork of Tech-Noir coded Overkill for IBM PC MS-DOS in 1992. Overkill is a Xenon 2-like. Graphics by Martin Holland. Composed by Anthony Williams.

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. Zone 66 is a protected mode run-time.

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.

Wing Commander 3 IBM PC 1994

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

Coded by Steve Cullen in 1994 MS-DOS Raiden 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).

The Amiga version of Desert Strike runs in 64-color extra half-brite mode.

Chaos Engine IBM PC 1994

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 was 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.

Descent IBM PC 1995

Abuse IBM PC 1996

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

Descent 2 IBM PC 1996

Gradius Windows PC 1997

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.

Axia IBM PC 1998

Dungeon Dwellers Design released Axia for IBM PC MS-DOS in 1998. An Asteroids-like, Axia was designed and coded by Jason Pimble. Cash is accumulated and a store can be accessed per five levels completed. Weapons include Cannon, Laser, Missile, Drone and Booster. Displays in 256-color VGA 640x400. Supports keyboard control or 4-button analogue/digital joystick.

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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. Put simply for our purposes, Agnus includes the copper coprocessor, the bit blitter and the DMA that reduces M68K overhead when playing sound; Paula includes the audio channels and control inputs (mouse/joystick); and Denise includes the color DACs and 16px-wide hardware sprites.

A typical Amiga playfield is hardware-scrolled and features hardware sprites and/or bobs (blitter objects) -- over 100 on-screen objects can be sustained. [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 had 512 kbytes RAM as standard but most Amigans upgraded to 1 megs of RAM by 1987 and many Amiga games run better or have more features with the upgrade.

Most Amiga games run in 320x200/256 (NTSC/PAL) low-res non-interlaced, but some run in overscan and others 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 Atari 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

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.

Goldrunner Atari ST 1987

Microdeal's Goldrunner of 1987 is another great shooter to grace the Atari ST.

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:

Insanity Fight Amiga 1987

LINEL Switzerland released Insanity Fight for Amiga in 1987. A push-scroller and super-scroller, Insanity Fight was programmed by Christian Haller.

Garrison Amiga 1987

Digital Dreams released Garrison for the Amiga/C64 in 1987/88. Garrison is a Gauntlet clone that is much better than the Gauntlet ports. The Amiga version was programmed by Andreas C. Hommel whereas Jörn Galka handled the C64 conversion.

Into the Eagle's Nest Atari ST 1987

Pandora / Mindscape released Into the Eagle's Nest for 8- and 16-bit micros in 1986-87. Kevin Parker programmed the ST/Amiga versions.

Andrew Challis coded the C64 version whereas Kevin Parker coded the ZX Spectrum version:

Oids Atari ST 1987

Mission Genocide Amstrad CPC 1987

Mission Genocide was released by Drinksoft in 1987 for Atari 520 ST and Amstrad CPC 464. Mission Genocide was programmed by Paul Shirley. Due to its smooth scrolling and sprite-shifting, Mission Genocide is the best shoot 'em up on the Amstrad CPC.

Skyrider Atari ST 1988

Wayne Smithson of Creation Software released Skyrider for Atari ST in 1988. Skyrider was the first horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up on the Atari ST. As such the scrolling is not smooth even though the active drawspace is only 288x112.

Virus Amiga 1988

Virus IBM PC 1988:

 

Conqueror Archimedes 1988

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 (disappointing) Commodore 64 version released in 1987:

Tiger Mission Commodore 64 1987

Coded by Thomas Larsen of Kele Line in 1987 for the C64, Tiger Mission is vertical-scroller with good controls, pacing and music. It takes a while for the gameplay to warm up -- be patient.

Lazer Force Commodore 64 1987

Gavin Raeburn's Lazer Force of 1987 is a vertically-scrolling and fixed-screen shooter known for its fast homing enemies and overall difficulty.

Thunderbolt Commodore 64 1987

Thunderbolt of 1987 is a bi-directional horizontally-scrolling super-scroller coded by Gavin Raeburn for the C64. Solid.

Hades Nebula 1987 Commodore 64

Paranoid Software's Hades Nebula stands as the one of the most difficult and underrated 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
• On-screeen space for maneuvering is limited

One nice touch is how the Laser weapon progressively rips through columns of enemies and installations.

Hades Nebula bosses:

Thrust Atari ST 1988

In 1988 Thrust was ported to the Atari ST by Silverbird Software from the 1986 BBC Micro 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 of 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 ambitious.

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.

Solid conversions of the 1942 and 1943 coinops were available on the Commodore 64 in 1986 and 1988.

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 side-on 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.

Rambo 3 Commodore 64 1988

Ocean ported Taito's Rambo 3 coinop to most 8 and 16 bit micros, but I prefer the C64 version. Rambo 3 is a three-stage top-down flip-screen run and gun game that features a separate inventory screen and one dozen items and four different weapons. Movement and firing is 8-way. There is also a sprite-scaling, OpWolf-style level.

John Siegesmund of Banana Development ported Taito's Rambo 3 coinop of 1989 to IBM PC in 1989.

Zamzara Commodore 64 1988

Released in 1988, Jukka Tapanimaki's Zamzara is one of the best run and gun games on the Commodore 64. Zamzara features precise controls, silky-smooth parallax scrolling and H.R Giger-like sprites and backdrops. In addition, the soundscape is solid.

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.

Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit Amiga 1989

Sensible Software's C64 Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit of 1987 was ported to ST/Amiga in 1989 by Richard Leinfellner for IDS. Via a series of menus and icons, the SEUCK utility allows users to design and test their own vertically-scrolling shoot 'em ups.

Operation Wolf Amiga 1988-89

Cabal Amiga 1989: Commandos

TAD Corporation's Cabal coinop of 1988 was ported to ST/Amiga by Ocean Software 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 16 bit Thunder Blade ports are absolute garbage.

Xenon Amiga 1988

Hybris Amiga 1988

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. However, the gameplay and audio-visuals of Hybris are far superior to C64 TC.

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. In addition, the objects are sizeable. And that is why Battle Squadron runs at 25 not 50 FPS. However, its display nevertheless smoothly updates.

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 whose graphics are bland, washed-out and lack the basic details of the original coinop. The Amiga is capable of so much more than this:

The Arnold Schwarzenegger Commando movie came out in 1985. As did Chris Butler's Commodore 64 Commando port.

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 which lacks the smooth scrolling and responsive controls of the original coinop, as well as many of its details:

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 ST and Amiga versions of Capcom's Forgotten Worlds coinop of 1988 should be forgotten; they are terrible ports by Arc Developments. Imagine wasting your pocket money on this garbage back in the day.

Displayed in EGA graphics mode, the 1991 IBM PC version by Arc Developments is just as forgettable:

Some computer game journalism said the ST/Amiga Forgotten Worlds ports were some of the best, if not the best shoot 'em ups when they 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 Tom Cruise's Top Gun was all the rage (1986).

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 shooter coinops to 16 bit micros. However, 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. And the WHDLoad fix basically saves the port's legacy because no one is going to play a 34 year-old dimly-lit computer game in 2024.

Commodore 64 version (1990):

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; audio by Chris Hülsbeck.

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, bosses and level layouts. In fact, the C64 version destroys the Amiga version in terms of gameplay, bang-for-buck and graphician-work.

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

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 of Llamasoft coded Super Gridrunner for ST/Amiga in 1989. Super Gridrunner is a fixed-screen 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.

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

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.

Robocop Atari ST 1989

Peter Johnson's 1989 Atari ST and Amiga ports of Data East's Robocop coinop of 1988 constitute an early run and gun blockbuster.

The Commodore 64 port coded by John Meegan was released in 1988. The Robocop movie came out in 1987.

The ZX Spectrum port of Robocop was handled by Mike Lamb. Robocop sold like hotcakes.

FACS Entertainment Software Inc. ported RoboCop to IBM PC in 1989:

R-Type Amiga 1989

Turrican Games Amiga 1990

R-Type 2 Amiga 1991

Apocalypse Acorn Archimedes 1990

The Killing Game Show Amiga 1990

Coded by Martyn Chudley of Raising Hell Software in 1990, The Killing Game Show is a slick multi-directional run and gun shooter that features climbing, jumping and rising water levels. The rising water even reflects the action. The Killing Game Show has good controls, presentation and audio-visuals on both ST and Amiga platforms. The Killing Game Show was drawn on the ST and coded on DevPac 68k assembler on the ST.

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:

The ST/Amiga versions of X-Out were 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, coded by Jörg Prenzing:

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

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 Atari's Asteroids coinop 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

Defender 2 Amiga 1990

Llamasoft released Defender 2 for the Amiga in 1990. Coded by Jeff Minter aka Yak, Defender 2 includes Defender, Defender 2 and Stargate. A great release for the Amiga in 1990.

Navy SEALS Commodore 64 1990

Based on the movie of 1990, Ocean Software Ltd.'s 8 bit and 16 bit Navy SEALS run and gun scrolls horizontally and vertically and features crouching, ladder-climbing and swinging from platforms. Navy SEALS is difficult and frustrating to play. Get good, son.

The C64 and Amiga versions were coded by John Meegan.

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

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.

Part-dragon, Part-machine Cyborg Dragon:

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.

P-47: Thunderbolt Commodore 64 1990

NMK's P-47: The Phantom Fighter coinop of 1988 was ported to the C64 by Michael Chilton of Source in 1990. The European home-computer versions are known as P-47: The Freedom Fighter and P-47: Thunderbolt. P-47 features good playability, parallax scrolling and raw and gritty visuals, but Silkworm of 1989 is better. Still, there are not many solid and semi-realistic Second World War shooters.

War Zone Amiga 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

RoboCop 3 Amiga 1991

Armalyte Amiga 1991: The Final Run (Delta 2)

A remake of the awesome C64 Armalyte, 1991's Armalyte: The Final Run by Arc Developments is notable for its extreme trial-and-error difficulty. You will be doing well to survive the first horizontal wave let alone the first vertical wave. In addition, collision detection is off. The music is good but the sound effects are awful. Overall, this is a 5/10 shooter at best.

Armalyte coded by Derrick Owens.

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.

Starforce Commodore 64 1991

Joachim Fräder of X-Ample Architectures coded Starforce for the Commodore 64 in 1991, which is an excellent Space Invaders / Galaxian clone.

Llamatron 2112 Amiga 1991

Llamatron 2112 was designed and coded by Jeff Minter of LlamaSoft in 1991 for ST/Amiga. 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.

Twin-joystick control aka two-joystick control aka dual-joystick control is when you use one joystick to move and another joystick to control the direction of fire. Thus, one can move in one direction while firing in another, aka strafing. Twin-joystick originated in Taito's Gun Fight coinop of 1975. It was also famously employed in Vid Kidz's Robotron 2084 coinop of 1982, of which Llamatron is a psychedelic clone.

Dual-stick is a god-tier shoot 'em up control system that could easily have been employed in more 8 and 16 bit micro shooters, but wasn't.

cf. Llamatron MS-DOS Version.

Amnios Amiga 1991

Psygnosis and Flying Chicken Software released Amnios as an Amiga-exclusive in 1991. Amnios is a multi-directionally-scrolling shooter that employs the Amiga extra halfbrite graphics mode for 64 on-screen colors (EHB mode). Amnios features some of the best audio on the Amiga.

The object of Amnios is to destroy a certain percentage of planet organs followed by a boss. Or rescue a certain number of humanoids. There are 10 surfaces to blast across.

Amnios was programmed by Paul Frewin, drawn and animated by Pete Lyon and composed by Tim Wright and Lee Wright.

 

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.

Enforcer bosses:

Agony Amiga 1992 Art and Magic

Project X Amiga 1992

Walker Amiga 1993

After the likes of Menace, Blood Money and Lemmings, DMA Design would develop Walker in 1993. Walker is a side-scrolling mech shooter with simple left-right keyboard-controlled movement and on-screen mouse-controlled targeting via crosshairs that can also lock-on to targets.

As in FASA's BattleTech the Walker AG-9's cannon can overheat and its shield can be depleted.

Walker is notable for its innovative kb/m controls, gritty graphics and sampled sound effects and speech. However, its scrolling is "interval-based", horizontal-only and non-parallax. In addition, its weapons system is cannon-only. Like most of DMA Design's games, Walker is overrated. The Amiga was capable of so much more.

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.

The Chaos Engine Amiga 1993

Uridium 2 Amiga 1993

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 256-color AGA-exclusive developed by Core Design in 1994. Most people played Banshee 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, and it only runs at half-frames (25 FPS).

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 released 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. Zeewolf was programmed by Andy Wilton.

Star Fighter 3000 Archimedes 1994

Defender Amiga 1994

Giles F. McArdell of Ratsoft cloned Williams' Defender coinop of 1981 to Amiga in 1994.

Deluxe Galaga Amiga 1995

A clone of Namco's Galaga coded by Edgar M. Vigdal in 1995, Deluxe Galaga features smooth sprite-shifting and 2-player coop. It also runs at 50 FPS.

Zeewolf 2 Amiga 1995

Binary Asylum released Zeewolf 2: Wild Justice in 1995 for the Amiga. Zeewolf 2 was programmed by Nick Vincent based on Andy Wilton's original Zeewolf code.

Mega Typhoon Amiga 1996

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. 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-screen Shoot 'em ups

• Cosmic Crusader (1982, IBM PC Booter) -- incredible for 1982
• Gyruss (1984, C64)
• Blasteroids (1989, ST/Amiga, MS-DOS)
• Stardust / Super Stardust AGA (1993-94, Amiga, MS-DOS)
• Llamatron (1991, ST/Amiga / 1992, MS-DOS)
• Deluxe Galaga (1995, Amiga)
• Pang (1990, ST/Amiga)
• Spacewar (1985, MS-DOS)
• 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

• Uridium 2 (1993, Amiga: variable-rate, extremely fast and smooth)
• Disposable Hero (1993, Amiga)
• Apidya (1991, Amiga)
• Project X (1992, Amiga)

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

cf. Super-scroller computer games.

Best Multi-Directionally-scrolling Shoot 'em ups

• Paradroid (1985, C64) -- smooth multi-directional scrolling in 1985 = numero uno
• Oids (1987, Atari ST)
• Thrust (1986, BBC Micro/C64)
• Hunter's Moon (1987, C64)
• 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)
• Light Force (1986/87, Speccy/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)
• Terra Cresta (1986, C64)

The top four are raw shoot 'em ups. Pure and unadulterated. Light Force is the rawest of all: no power-ups, no nothing. Just destroy as much as you can to sruvive and get points and bonuses for 1-ups. Perfect.

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)
• Armalyte (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
• Armalyte (1988, C64) -- no sprite flickering despite complex sprite-chains
• 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)
• Sidewinder 2 (1989, Amiga, 80 objects)
• Salamander (1988, C64, 33 objects)

An "object" is a sprite or bob that moves either over or under the playfield. 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) -- Mark Coleman
• Chaos Engine (Amiga/ST, 1993) -- Dan Malone
• Agony (Amiga, 1992) -- Franck Sauer
• SWIV (Amiga, 1991) -- Ned Langman
• IO: Into Oblivion (C64, 1988) -- Bob Stevenson
• Katakis (1988, C64) -- Andreas Escher
• Enforcer (C64, 1992) -- Manfred Trenz
• Armalyte (C64, 1988) -- Robin Levy
• Turrican 2 (Amiga, 1991) -- Manfred Trenz, Andreas Escher
• Turrican (C64, 1990) -- Manfred Trenz
• Apidya (Amiga, 1992) -- Frank Matzke
• Disposable Hero (Amiga, 1993) -- Hein Holt & Arthur van Jole
• Seek and Destroy (1996, MS-DOS) -- Rod Smith (2D), Grant Wallis (3D)
• Project X (1992, Amiga) -- Rico Holmes

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

As it pertains to raw pixel art that is not reliant on coding tricks that enhance visuals, two of the best computer-game graphicians in the late 80s and early 90s were Mark Coleman and Dan Malone.

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) -- Chris Hülsbeck
• Apidya (Amiga, 1992) -- Chris Hülsbeck
• Agony (Amiga, 1992) -- Jeroen Tel
• Xenon 2 (Amiga, 1989) -- David Whittaker
• Chaos Engine (Amiga, 1993) -- Richard Joseph
• Super Stardust AGA (Amiga, 1994) -- Risto Vuori
• Enforcer (1992, C64) -- Markus Siebold

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 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 / 2000 (1990, Amiga / Archimedes)
• Alien Breed (1991, Amiga)
• Robotron 2084 (1983, IBM PC Booter)
• 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)
• Wizball (1987, IBM PC Booter)
• Datastorm (1989, Amiga)
• Lethal Xcess Wings of Death II (1991, Amiga)
• Blasteroids (1990 ST/Amiga)

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

• R-Type (1990, ZX Spectrum) -- The greatest port of all-time
• Silkworm (1989, ST/Amiga) -- it's better than the arcade original
• Gradius (1987, C64)
• Salamander (1988, C64)
• Gyruss (1984, C64)
• Slap Fight (1987, C64)
• X-Out (1990, Amiga) (from C64)
• R-Type (1989, Amiga)
• Terra Cresta (1986, C64)
• 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 in order to 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 and other info, which means they had to "go by the eye and ear".

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 (1986/87, Speccy/C64) -- exhausting
• Project X (1992, Amiga) -- just plain tough (and the inertia filters many people)
• Alien Breed (1991, Amiga) -- respawns and time limits
• 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
• Mega-Apocalypse (1987, C64) -- hostiles home-in at great speed

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.

Katakis is one of the best C64 shooters, but it is easy. Dead easy. So are Gradius and Salamander on the C64. These are good shoot 'em ups for beginners to play.

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.

Oids also came out at the perfect time in the ST's life-cycle.

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).

However, it is important to remember that Oids came out only one year after Thrust, yet Oids is exceedingly feature-packed. Thus, Oids was instrumental in showing how 16 bit micro > 8 bit micro.

It is also ironic that one of the worst micros for scrolling hosted one of the very best scrolling shoot 'em ups. No one bought an ST for arcade-action scrollers. Overall, the ST was a technical downgrade even on the C64; the ST even had worse audio than the C64. Oids should have been developed for the C64 and/or the Amiga, not the ST.

I would even go so far as to say that the ST did not deserve Oids; it was not the right micro for Oids.

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. Unlike Oids Zarch played to the strengths of Archimedes hardware. 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 staggeringly-massive games-catalogue would not become outdated, ever.

cf.

• Fixed-screen Shoot 'em ups
• Vertically-scrolling shoot 'em ups
• Horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em ups
• Multi-directionally-scrolling Shoot 'em ups
• Run and gun computer games
• IBM PC Shoot 'em ups Listed in Chronological Order
• TRS-80 Shoot 'em ups Listed in Chronological Order
• Amiga Shoot 'em ups Listed in Chronological Order
• Commodore 64 Shoot 'em ups Listed in Chronological Order
• Invader-likes: clones and ports of Taito's Space Invaders 1978
• Galaxian-likes: clones and ports of Namco's Galaxian 1979
• Asteroids-likes: clones and ports of Atari's Asteroids 1979
• Berzerk-likes: clones and ports of Stern Electronics' Berzerk 1980
• Defender-likes: clones and ports of Williams' Defender 1981
• Scramble-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Scramble 1981
• Galaga-likes: clones and ports of Namco's Galaga 1981
• Robotron-likes: clones and ports of Vid Kidz's Robotron 1982
• Xevious-likes: clones and ports of Namco's Xevious 1982
• Gravitar-likes: clones and ports of Atari's Gravitar 1982
• Gyruss-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Gyruss 1983
• Gradius-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Gradius 1985
• Commando-likes: clones and ports of Capcom's Commando 1985
• Salamander-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Salamander 1986
• R-Type-likes: clones and ports of Irem's R-Type 1987
• Western Computer-game Machines
• History of Computer Games 1976-2024
• History of 1990s Computer Games
• cRPG Blog (Master Index)