Games in this group that come to mind are Superstardust HD, the Gradius and Aleste series.Īlso referred to as manic shooters, these games consist of the player having to dodge an overwhelming amount of projectiles on the screen. I would consider these to be where the player becomes more powerful by adding additional weapons and/or increasing the strength of your existing weapon.
Of course not every shooter will fall into one of these but these are just three different categories that I normally associate them with. This one is a little tricky for me to answer but I mainly put shooters into 3 different types of groups: Power-up focused, Bullet Hell and Run & Gun. What are the different types of shooters? Either way, we can probably credit Space Invaders for kick-starting the genre. Many people cite Space Invaders as the very first shooter but Wikipedia points out that video game journalist Brian Ashcraft states that the honor belongs to Spacewar!, a very early computer game. This is in no way a complete list (yet) but hopefully it will prove useful as a reference and with others’ help a guide to steer others to the shooters they are most interested in.Īlso, I refer to these games as shooters even though many might associate that word to a FPS game, but I just don’t like the word ‘SHMUP’. There are a lot of questions that I had (and some I still have), and what about people who are new to the genre and are curious on where to start? Trying to keep track of which games are available on what system, the names (Mushihimesa-meca-hiney-ho-what?) and what region they are available in has become quite a chore.
I’m a fan of the genre but by no means an expert.