The Classic PC Gaming Era (1977-1989) - Enjoying the Shoot 'em Up and Run and Gun Genre Today
Need more shoot 'em up or run and gun games for your PC beyond the ones we covered? Have I got a list of great games for you!
The shoot ‘em up genre is one where your mileage may vary depending upon how much you enjoy the core mechanics and sensibilities. I personally find the genre rather tedious and filled with games I have little interest in playing. Most are dull and far too difficult to be played for casual enjoyment, and far too many require trial and error gameplay and rote memorization.
Even so, there are some absolutely brilliant titles that are worth exploring, and many even showed up first on the Commodore 64, which adds to their mystique since one would assume that 16-bit systems like the Amiga and Atari ST would have the natural edge. In the UK, demand for low-priced arcade games and a thriving scene of creative developers produced some really incredible shoot ‘em ups that were virtually unknown in North America, and in Japan, standards like the MSX and Sharp X68000 allowed for shooters that were close to arcade-quality.
Notable or Essential Games
Many of the best games for this genre were ports of popular arcade games, and we’re going to save those titles for our next volume when we tackle the coin-ops. The PC-exclusive games we’re not going to cover (because they have been so extensively covered by gaming media) are the following notable or essential titles:
Parsec (1982) – A side-scrolling shooter in the style of Scramble that’s notable for using the TI-99 4/A’s speech synthesis chip. It’s difficult to play today, but it was one of the best games on the platform at the time.
Raid on Bungeling Bay (1984) – A multidirectional overhead shooter from Brøderbund where you fly a helicopter over cities and destroy targets. Notable for being the spark that lit the fire in creator Will Wright’s imagination and lead him to design SimCity.
Alleykat (1986) – Also known as Demolition Mission: The Alleykat Space Racer. A Commodore 64 exclusive crafted by Andrew Braybrook (Uridium, Paradroid) which combines an overhead shooter with a racing game and offers eight different battle race circuits.
Shoot 'em up Construction Kit (1987) – Sensible Software’s game-making kit for the shoot ‘em up genre is versatile enough to create just about any standard shooter you can imagine if you’re willing to put the time in. The Commodore 64 and Amiga versions continue to attract creators even today, and there are many, many great user-generated games available to try out if you’re interested. The included games created by Sensible Software’s team are all fun as well.
Parodius (1988) – Konami’s distinctive parody of Gradius debuted not in the arcades, but on the MSX. While later iterations are unquestionably better, the original is still worth checking out. It’s very playable even if you don’t know Japanese, and the cartoonish sprites and imaginative design make up for the choppy scrolling and limited color palette.
Xenon and Xenon 2: Megablast (1988 and 1989) – Two top-down vertical shooters in the style of Xevious created by the popular UK development team known as The Bitmap Brothers. The original game involves transforming into a tank to battle ground units and a plane to battle air units, but while in tank mode, the player has control over the tank’s direction, allowing for a stop to the vertical scrolling action. The second game ditches the tank mode and feels much more like an overhead R-Type but allows the player to have some control over the speed and scrolling of the screen. While both were popular on the Amiga in the late 80s (Xenon 2: Megablast was even a showcase staple for many Amiga owners until games like Shadow of the Beast came along), neither holds up well today as a great game beyond their impressive graphics and sound.
If you haven’t played these games, you ought to.
Games I’ll Feature in the Book
I’ve spotlighted quite a few shoot ‘em ups already, but titles I’ll additionally feature in the book edition of The Greatest Games You’ve (Probably) Never Played Vol. 1 include:
Hunter’s Moon (1987) – A brilliant but tough multidirectional overhead shoot ‘em up from Martin Walker, one of the great game music composers for the Commodore 64. It’s much more of a thinking person’s shooter than other games like it, and once you get over the learning curve, it’s a fun experience.
First Strike (1989) – A nice After Burner-style game that plays surprisingly well on the Commodore 64 as you fly an F-16 through eight different missions. It’s not hard, but it’s fun.
Games You Might Want To Try
The shoot ‘em up and run and gun genres were quite popular in the 1980s, and in addition to the titles above, there were many excellent games released throughout the decade that are worth checking out if you’re interested:
Raid Over Moscow (1984) – A multi-stage action game from Access Software similar to the Beach Head series but featuring flying stealth bomber missions where you try to stop the USSR from launching a nuclear strike.
Suicide Express (1984) – An unusual game from Tony Crowther and Gremlin Graphics that plays like Sega’s Super Locomotive arcade game crossed with Moon Patrol. The top part of the screen shows your train in a sidescrolling view while the second screen below allows you to navigate a complex train track from above. The gameplay is blisteringly fast and the graphics are superb.
Thexder (1985) – An influential side-scrolling run and gun game from Game Arts in Japan where you can transform into a robot or a jet as you navigate mazes. It’s quite challenging and gets frustrating fast, but you have to love the great graphics and the Beethoven Moonlight Sonata music on the title screen.
Z-Pilot (1985) – A multidirectional overhead shooter where you fly around and blast bad guys. It’s simple and only has four levels, but it’s fun and looks great on the Commodore 64.
Knightmare (1986) – An overhead vertical scrolling MSX title from Konami where you play as a knight trying to rescue a princess. It sort of looks like a cross between Shovel Knight and Commando. While it’s a fairly average game, it’s notable for being a run and gun game that isn’t based on a war scenario and which didn’t start out as an arcade release. Its sequels, 1987’s The Maze of Galious and 1989’s Shalom: Knightmare III, carry on the continuity but play completely differently.
Lucifer's Kingdom (1986) – Developer Pulser Software packed a lot of gameplay into this Dragon 32/64 exclusive overhead vertical scrolling shooter that’s heavily inspired by the Tecmo arcade game Star Force. It’s definitely obscure, but worth a look, and far better than that platform’s other shooter, Star Fighter, a really janky Scramble clone from 1984.
Zanac (1986) – An overhead vertical shooter for the MSX that is better-known for its scaled-down Famicom/NES version. It was developed by Compile, creators of a number of great 1980s and 90s shooters like Aleste and Blazing Lazers as well as the Puyo Puyo series. Their 1986 MSX game Gulkave is also worth checking out.
Zybex (1987) – A Gradius-style shoot ‘em up where you’re always shooting and the fire button toggles the weapon you use. Notable for its non-linear level design. Best on the Commodore 64.
The Last Guardian (1988) – A late entry on the Atari 400/800 that’s patterned after Tecmo’s Star Force. It’s decent, but not distinctive. It also has no relation to the 2016 PlayStation 4 game of the same name.
SideWinder (1988) – An attractive and competent vertical-scrolling overhead shooter for the Amiga that was good enough to get a subsequent arcade release running on modified Amiga hardware.
Hybris (1988) – A nice-looking vertical-scrolling overhead shooter with a great soundtrack. Your ship gets gigantic as you upgrade it, and the customizable weapons system is quite interesting. It’s an Amiga exclusive that looks as good as anything in the arcades from that era, and it’s also fun and easy to play.
Katakis (1988) – An R-Type clone that’s so similar to its inspiration that the development team at the nascent Factor 5 got sued by Activision Europe for their Amiga version. (Things turned out all right for them; they settled and wound up porting R-Type to the Amiga, paving the way for them to become a legendary developer in the 1990s.) The Commodore 64 version is great, but the Amiga version is breathtaking.
IO (1988) – A fantastic R-Type-style shoot ‘em up that’s a Commodore 64 exclusive. It’s gorgeous, but it’s also really short and not as challenging as some of the other games mentioned here, so I’d recommend it mostly for novices or those looking for a good, quick game.
Slayer (1988) – A sidescrolling shoot ‘em up that features many narrow corridors and some extremely challenging levels. The bosses are the real draw – one’s a giant dinosaur, one’s a huge lizard, and one’s a weird mutant space goat. Good on the Commodore 64, but better on the Amiga.
Phobia (1989) – A strange and surreal side-scrolling shoot ‘em up that’s reminiscent of Parodius (though far less humorous) because it alternates between more conventional levels and outright bizarre ones. The Commodore 64 version is actually better than the graphically superior versions on the Amiga and Atari ST.
Battle Squadron (1989) – An Amiga exclusive follow-up to Hybris that’s better in just about every way, but which is also one of the hardest vertical scrolling shoot ‘em ups I’ve ever played. Fortunately, there are cheat codes that make the game far more fun, and I recommend using them.
As Our Series Continues…
In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about 3D games, flight simulators, sports games, gameroom games, puzzle games, unusual games and so much more.
And while you’ll definitely see some titles from prominent North American publishers like Sierra On-Line, Infocom, Activision, Electronic Arts, Brøderbund, SSI, MicroProse, Lucasfilm Games, Epyx and Sir-Tech in the mix, you’ll also see references to games from the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Spain and Japan.
If you’ve missed the earlier entries in the series, which cover ASCII games, adventure games, wargames, strategy games and role-playing games, you can find the entire archive at https://greatestgames.substack.com.
Anything I don’t share here will be in my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Greatest Games You (Probably) Never Played Vol. 1. Subscribe to this newsletter so you won’t miss it!