The Classic PC Gaming Era (1977-1989) - Shoot 'em Ups and Run and Gun Games
1980s PC gaming offered many shoot 'em up and run and gun games that didn't originate in the arcades. Here's a look at how the genre evolved!
Taito’s 1978 arcade game Space Invaders was the first coin-op game since 1972’s Pong to gain popular culture recognition around the world, and it established a template that many subsequent coin-op games would follow. The simple action mechanics of Space Invaders allowed players to move from side to side, shooting upwards at an encroaching alien fleet while dodging a rain of bullets and hiding beneath rapidly-depleting shields. Players had to learn how to time shots, memorize patterns and outmaneuver enemy fire, and those skills translated very well to popular games that followed such as Atari’s 1979 hit Asteroids, 1980 hit Centipede and Namco’s 1981 arcade hits, Bosconian (a multidirectional overhead shooter) and Galaga (a scrolling vertical shooter with moving enemies). 1981 was also the year that Midway’s Defender debuted, allowing players to scroll the screen to the left or right as they flew across a cylindrical world and rescued humans from alien abductors.
But 1981 also saw the release of Konami’s arcade classic Scramble, a side-scrolling horizontal shooter where players were able to pilot a plane through cities and mountain ranges, shooting at targets while dodging environmental hazards and squeezing through gaps. And in 1982, Activision released its console classic River Raid, a shooting game that was similar to Scramble, but portrayed from the overhead perspective. In both games, players were required to memorize level patterns and anticipate where and when it was best to start shooting at enemies and where it was best to focus on navigating tough terrain.
By 1982, arcade shoot ‘em ups evolved yet again with the release of Namco’s Xevious, a distinctive-looking vertically scrolling overhead game that allowed players to press different buttons for air attacks and ground attacks. And Sega’s Zaxxon upped the ante by providing an isometric pseudo-3D perspective where players could change the velocity and altitude of their ship during play.
All of these games provided some influence on the emerging genre known as the “shoot ‘em up” or “shmup” today, and by the time Konami debuted its landmark title Gradius (also known as Nemesis) in arcades in 1985, the genre had already grown into several different branches:
Vertical scrolling shooters like Xevious that included ground and air combat or Capcom’s 1941 that focused primarily on air-to-air combat. Most took place over open environments rather than including walls for players to crash into.
Horizontal sidescrolling shooters like Gradius that focused on taking down waves of enemies while avoiding environmental hazards. Many also included the idea of powering up to gain additional weapons or shots. Once Irem’s R-Type debuted in 1987, many games quickly copied its controllable pod, which could be used as a secondary weapon and shield.
Multidirectional overhead shooters like Bosconian and Brøderbund’s Raid on Bungeling Bay where players could fly freely in all directions over a map and destroy targets.
Multidirectional horizontal shooters like Atari’s Gravitar or Williams Electronics’s Defender where players had the ability to travel left or right at will.
Isometric shooters like Zaxxon or Synpase Software’s Blue Max where players could have a pseudo-3D view of the action and perhaps some control over their altitude.
Run and gun shooters like Capcom’s Commando or Gun.Smoke where players got to be a human being shooting wildly instead of a vehicle. While this genre started out focused on the overhead perspective, it wasn’t long before Game Arts’s 1985 game Thexder and Konami’s 1987 arcade version of Contra made a popular case for run and gun titles to shift to a horizontal sidescrolling style.
Chase camera shooters like Atari’s Major Havoc or Coleco’s Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom where a 3D perspective allowed the shooter to create the illusion of controlling a ship from behind.
As the genre continued to evolve, landmark titles such as Taito’s Darius, Capcom’s Area 88 / U.N. Squadron and Seibu Kaihatsu’s Raiden as well as less familiar titles from Japanese developers like Compile, Cave, Game Arts, Sega, SNK, Treasure, Technosoft and ADK Corporation helped evolve what shooters could be. Two additional subgenres that became quite popular as 32-bit processors and 3D graphics became more standard included the rail shooter, which placed the action on a set movement path similar to light gun games and the bullet hell (also known as the barrage or danmaku) shooter, which forced players to learn to dodge enormous numbers of patterned attacks from enemies, sometimes by utilizing special techniques.
But most of this evolution occurred in the arcades, where specialized hardware could provide the fast-moving graphics required to make these games work. The PCs many gamers had in the early to mid-1980s initially didn’t seem very capable of providing a similar experience, and it took some doing for programmers to figure out how to translate flashy arcade titles to underpowered platforms like the Commodore 64, Atari 400/800, TI-99 4/A, Amstrad CPC or the ZX Spectrum.
Amazingly, however, several developers figured out innovative ways to make these concepts work on the PC, and the result was some original games that either expanded upon the genre with new ideas or which were so good they could easily compete with ports of popular arcade games.
In the latter half of the 1980s, the popular 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST platforms allowed gamers to enjoy a more arcade-like experience on their PCs. One of the most popular arcade games of the time was Irem’s R-Type, and it’s thus unsurprising that many of the 16-bit titles shamelessly copied that game’s style of action and power-ups. Some of these games were even co-developed or ported for 8-bit platforms. One of the major developers that arose from this period was The Bitmap Brothers, a UK-based team that created the popular late 80s games Xenon and Xenon 2: Megablast.
Sensible Software also released a game-builder for both the Commodore 64 and the Amiga called Shoot ‘em Up Construction Kit in 1987, which not only allowed players to create scrolling shooters but also run and gun style games that could then be published via diskette. Fans continue to author games on this software today.
We will cover the history of Japanese shoot ‘em ups much more thoroughly in the next volume of this series, and there’s no question that on the PC, the most popular shoot ‘em ups and run and gun games were ports of Japanese arcade games like Commando, Ikari Warriors, Contra, R-Type, Gradius, Rush ‘n Attack and RoboCop. As the 1990s brought more and more Japanese shoot ‘em ups and run and gun games direct from arcades to home consoles, fewer and fewer were released for the PC in Western markets.
But that doesn't mean the PC didn’t have its own notable titles. Some of the Japanese releases that originated on the PC include Game Arts’s 1985 run and gun shooter Thexder and 1986 pseudo-3D shoot ‘em up Silpheed, Compile’s 1986 side-scrolling shooter Zanac, Konami’s silly 1986 shoot ‘em up Parodius, Technosoft’s 1988 side-scrolling shooter Thunder Force II, Konami’s 1989 side-scrolling shooter Space Manbow and Compile’s 1989 side-scrolling shooter Aleste 2.
As Our Series Continues…
In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about shoot ‘em ups, 3D games, flight simulators, sports games, gameroom games, puzzle 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!