For the uninitiated, shoot ‘em ups, or ‘shmups’, are a sub-genre of games where the player is faced with a fairly straightforward task: shoot everything on the screen and try not to die. In many respects, it’s actually the second part of that modus operandi that becomes the main objective for shoot ‘em up players, as apparently the first rule for developers when creating a shmup is ‘fill screen with unrelenting death’.

Perhaps ‘shoot ‘em up’ is the wrong description for these games altogether. Generally speaking, the actual shooting consists of little more than holding down one button (FIRE) at all times while trying to negotiate endless waves of rocket shaped oblivion. I say rockets, but in shmups you can find yourself staring down Death’s icy gaze in the form of anything from those familiar enemies of everything associated with you living – bullets and rockets – all the way up to giant balls of energy, lasers, alien discharge and even maths problems.

Perhaps the most endearing thing about shmups is that although the formula is simple, the hundreds of ways that this blueprint has been interpreted and re-invented over the past 30 years is actually really interesting (and hilarious).

At The Arcade

My first experience with what can be classed as a ‘typical’ shooter was – I think – 1942. Before you start wondering what kind of sadistic bastard writes jokes about the Second World War being like a video game, allow me to provide you with come context: the 1942 to which I refer was in fact a very popular arcade game from Japanese company Capcom, released in 1984.

Set during, uh… the Second World War, the player took control of an aircraft in this top-down, vertical shoot ‘em up, tasked with taking out enemy fighters, battleships, tanks and bases. I remember spending hours on this game, mostly in arcades either in Great Yarmouth or Butlins camp sites, desperately striving to reach the top of the high score table. That accolade avoided me during my entire arcade gaming career, and I played everything from 1942 to, well, 1943.

1942 whet my appetite for shumps, and it was through this that I soon discovered more intense – and brain-itchingly crazy – games to lose my temper with. R-Type, produced by arcade stalwarts and all-round Japanese bad-asses Irem, was the first game of the shooter family to really blow me away. Introducing previously unheard-of (to me, at least) potential to build massive, screen-killing power-ups and even – holy bullet-haze! – possess a shield.

Coincidentally, Irem were also responsible for another one of my favourite arcade games – although not another shoot ‘em up – Kung Fu Master. This was a Beat ‘em up (there’s a trend here, right?) that at one point in time, literally blurred the lines between games and reality for me.

My older brother and I – along with whoever happened to be around at the time – would recreate Kung Fu Master on the landing at home, leading me to wonder now if we could have created one of the earliest and most ill-conceived movies based on a video game of all time.

I had the fortune of playing shoot ‘em ups during a period when the genre was growing both technically and creatively. During the 90s, a genre that has become commonly (lovingly?) referred to as ‘bullet hell’ rose to the fore as the premium experience in temper-shredding. Games soon became brain-melting endurance tests, where the reward for surviving a screen long enough to see what was actually shooting at you was the fact that your head didn’t explode. If you’re having a hard time picturing that, try watching this video (and be warned, if the visuals don’t make you want to cry, the soundtrack will). Shmups were now solely the domain for the hardest of the hardcore, with developers lining up title after title in order to satiate a gaming public thirsty for more games to test their mettle.

One such company, Cave, released five bullet hell games in five consecutive years, including the huge successes DonPachi and its sequel. Similarly, Japanese developer Treasure churned out many hit games during this period, including multi-directional shooters such as Gunstar Heroes and Bangai-O alongside traditional space shooters.

In 1998, Treasure released Radiant Silvergun (co-incidentally inspired by an Irem title named Image Flight from 1988), which had the unique distinction of offering players no power ups. It did provide you with 7 weapons right from the start, but Treasure soon decided that was too easy, so they wrote in a code that meant each weapon required a different 3 button combination to be entered every time. Have fun with that one, kids.

The Rise of Home Gaming

The rise of the home console market began to phase out the traditional 2D gaming aesthetic of shoot ‘em ups through advances in 3D graphics and the newly christened ‘casual’ gamers. As a reaction, shmup developers searched increasingly for new ways to compete. This largely consisted of updates of older arcade titles. A succesful port of Silpheed to the doomed MEGA-CD (Night Trap? Bram Stoker’s Dracula? Why did it fail?!) retained the cool 3D graphics and isometric perspective of the original, but it was still essentially a remake of some weird game from the 80s with the longest intro of all time.

Another stab at the R-Type series hit the Playstation late on, but this is where my love-affair with shmups effectively ended. I was lured to a world of 3D racing, football, and Lara Croft’s ‘artifacts’. Then one day, my uncle, of all people invited me to play on some new game for his Dreamcast that reminded him of R-Type. Soon remembering the weeks of my life lost in laser-filled love with the R-type of my youth, I was intrigued as to what this new game could be. Turned out it was Ikaruga, and then the whole world lost its freakin’ mind.

Ikaruga was like some mutant child conceived round the back of a bookies by 1942 and R-type, then adopted by Radiant Silvergun and taught Kung Fu. As yet another addition to the top-down space-shooter club, Ikaruga displayed its superior genitals to every dumb shmup that preceded it by utilizing a ‘polarity’ gimmick.

Having experimented with this in the previously mentioned Radiant Silvergun, as well as Silhouette Mirage, this mechanic revolved around enemies that fired two types of death – white or black – and the player could switch the ship they piloted between the two colours at will. The player could absorb projectiles of the same colour, while still being vulnerable to its opposite. If you think that sounds simple, congratulations! Because yes, it sounds simple – but watch the video below and try coming back to this article after your eyes stop melting. Just so we’re clear here, that’s one guy playing with two ships at the same time. You’d think Jedi Knights would have more important things to do than play shmups, but what the hell do I know?

Ikaruga has long been considered something of a gold standard when it comes to insane space-shooters – at least among the mainstream press – but many people feel it lacks room for creative play and the strictness of its chaining makes it more of a puzzle game. Mushi Futari, Espgaluda II, Ketsui, Raiden Fighters Jet and Battle Garegga demand far more thought and player-input than Treasure’s title, they just don’t have that elegant concept that woos outsiders so easily. Other demonic bullet-fests out there to liquefy your sanity include Axelay, Xevious, Galaga, Gradius 5, DoDonPachi or the sphincter-tightening nightmare that is Mushihime-sama Futari if you have a particularly masochistic approach to video gaming.

And Now…

Looking over more recent games, there is a certain contender that made me think that there’s something new waiting in the wings for shoot ‘em ups, and for once it didn’t involve piloting a spaceship along a 2D plane into the mouth of hell… you actually play a chain-smoking marine in a cybernetic rocket suit instead.

Vanquish was developed for SEGA by Platinum Games in 2010, and took 2 popular gaming formats – one old, one new – threw them in a cement mixer and tried to bake a cake. A cake filled with bullets and lighter fuel. Amazingly, it totally worked, and Vanquish ended up being something of a critical and cult hit, if not so much a commercial one.

Vanquish took the classic bullet hell shmup format and transplanted it on to a 3D cover shooter, which sounds insane but actually works incredibly well. The premise is still as simple as it was in the 80s (shoot at everything, all of the time, until you die. Try again) but the added game play elements offered by the 3D gaming field opens the whole thing up into something much more: mainly cranking everything up to MEGA EXPLOSIONS.

It’s a great format that inspired me to go back and pick through my old shoot ‘em ups in search of more frustratingly punishing fun, and ultimately led to this article being written. Shoot ‘em ups will always be with us it seems, whether it be in retro arcade titles coming to home consoles at budget prices (Trouble Witches NEO on Xbox Live Arcade is a personal highlight, along with Deathsmiles) or through current-gen developers taking the format and updating it: Bizarre Creations’ Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, for example, completely rethinks the Shmup genre and turns up the epilepsy warning. Also, if you’ve got a Kinect sensor, you’re doing yourself a serious disservice if you’ve not picked up Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Child of Eden.

Despite whatever the future may hold for the good old shmup, however, one thing remains abundantly clear: I will always suck at them.

Currently in development for the PlayStation network and Xbox LIVE, SEGA Rally online arcade is sounding very much like a greatest hits compilation of SEGA Rally as it’s been inspired by both SEGA Rally Revo and SEGA Rally 3:

We’ve blended our hit arcade racing series with the best elements from the console versions to bring our fans the SEGA Rally experience in compact, downloadable format,” said Haruki Satomi, Vice President of Digital Business at SEGA. “Whether they’re new to the SEGA Rally series or they’ve participated in countless races over the years, we’re confident everyone will enjoy the wide variety of features included in this fan favorite.

Features:

All in all this is fairly standard stuff for an online racer, with nothing really revolutionary in the feature list. However, it is a SEGA Rally game, so I’m hoping there will be a little bit of SEGA magic in there somewhere. Don’t forget SEGA is responsible for these driving classics:

Virtua Racing (1992):

Daytona USA (1994):

SEGA Rally Online Arcade will be available later on in 2011 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

[P.S. You've got some SEGA on your SEGA. - Ed]

What is it?

Arcade style rally racing.

Is it fun?

Yes.

Is it worth the money? £39.99

Yes.

Why?

I almost need to review Sega Rally twice. Once with the standard 360 controller and once with the set-up that Sega provided us when we visited them in August. Why? Well, playing Sega Rally whilst sitting in a Sparco racing seat, with force-feedback steering wheel (and pedals) I was in driving heaven. It’s perfect. You can feel every bump as your car drives over all the track deformations and as it power slides around another lovely corner.

Unsurprisingly, without the steering wheel you do feel a little bit more disconnected from your car. The 360 controller is never going to recreate force-feed back, so its really a minor gripe in the scheme of things. But now I’ve tasted Sega Rally force-feedback style I want more. Lots more. Now if only I could persuade Sega to lend me all the kit….

Anyway Sega Rally is really fun to play. All the cars handle well and look beautiful. Mmm, car pr0n. There are plenty of tracks spread over a variety of different environments to test all your driving skills. There are 5 other AI cars in each race to fight with, and Gran Turismo style driving (i.e. dive down the inside at each corner) proves surprisingly effective. So they aren’t too hard to beat, but will put up challenge if you don’t drive well. In particular there are a couple of Alpine tracks that look absolutely stunning whilst your driving, something I never really experienced with DIRT (Sega Rally’s closest competitor).

Whilst on the subject of DIRT they are quite different games. Yes, they are both “rally” games, but Sega Rally is all about the arcade experience with its quick pick-up and play ideology. Where as DIRT is a more nuts and blots rally game, with damage, accurate stages and 1 car vs the track gameplay.

As far as multiplayer is concerned, I thoroughly enjoyed racing against other people via Xbox Live. The arcade style game play works really well for those quick 3 lap races with up 5 other people at once. It’s also very easy to find available races, something that I found much harder to do in DIRT. As all the cars are nicely balanced in terms of power and handling it really is a test of driver skill and not machinery.

In summary:

It’s a fun, pick up and play arcade racer. What more could you want?

Screenshots:

Sega Rally is out now on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and PSP.

I fire up the game and I’m greeted with this gem of an instruction screen for Monkey Fling:

Sadly, the mini-game isn’t nearly as entertaining as it sounds.