Shoot-em Ups!

Today I want to write about one of my favorite genres in gaming, the shoot-em up, or as they are sometimes refered, the shmup. The schmup is one of the most noble of video game genres, and one that does not flourish today, especially in North America. However they are still around and in Asia are still somewhat popular.
My love for them started with Galaga back at the arcades. I used to go to a public laundry place, and all I would do is play Galaga over and over while I waited for the laundry to be finished. This was when I was 7 or so, so it has been a while. Later on the NES I would play Gradius and Twin Bee not knowing that 20 years later I would be playing the very same games. I just got three sweet games for my PSP. Twinbee portable, Salamander Portable, and Parodius Portable. These are collections of games in these series and are worth every dime. Parodius especially is not something I played a lot of growing up, so it was a real treat to be able to play the later releases. Salamander Portable is nice too, including Xexex and Gradius 2 in the package. These are imports but at 35 bucks each they are a cost effective way to play through a lot of classics with enhanced options. I also recommend the Gradius Collection which was actually released here in the States.

I think my interest in Shoot-em Ups resurfaced with Ikaruga, which I first experienced on the Game Cube. This game was famous for its difficulty and awesome design. It turns out it was not overrated at all. It is an amazing experience and I'm glad to own it for the Game Cube and the Dreamcast. If it ever comes out to the Xbox Live arcade I will get it there too...
Which brings me into what I believe is the panacea of shmups, the dreamcast. There are so many awesome games for the dreamcast it is stupid. Add to this the cost of the hardware and a dreamcast should be part of every video game fan, and is a requirement for any Shoot-em Up follower. There are not only a lot of games released stateside, but a very large number of imports. Not only that, people to this day still develop shooters for the dreamcast! I just played Karous a few days ago, only to learn that it might be coming out for the Wii soon. Radilgy is another cell-shaded shooter that was scheduled for release in the Gamecube and got axed. Well you can still play it on your Dreamcast! Finally, there is a compendium of shmups for the Dreamcast, released by Lan-Di. It is esentially a collection of emulators, with about. 180 games. You know the drill on emulation and roms, you need to own the game of the rom you play, etc etc.
Shoot-em Ups have some of the best gameplay, forcing you to concentrate as you dodge waves of bullets and have to predict enemy patterns. I love 2D shmups, but lately there has been a wave of 3D shooters in a 2D perspective, which I think works really nice and still looks modern enough to justify new releases on machines which specialize on 3D rendering. I hope the genre continues to exist for a long time!