Demolition Gunner: In Seek And Destroy

My Next review is another freeware shmup called Demolition Gunner: In Seek and Destroy by the doujin circle Dark Hell Company. They later transformed into Astro Port one of the most well known doujin shmup circles. This version of the game is a black label (update) of the normal Demolition Gunner with a remix mode added. As you can see it has a helicopter for the players craft instead of a spaceship or some cutesy character, of which in a doujin game it’s not seen often compared to euro shmups which tend to use the helicopter a lot more. Rather then been fixed forward facing the helicopter rotates slightly when moving left or right which makes a change from the norm plus makes play easier as due to the large amount the screen scrolls left and right, that forces the player to make long left/right sweeping movement to destroy all the enemies that are off the screen.

The graphics are ok for a 2d doujin shooter, although I do which there was a little bit more variety in the enemies you fight as they all look similar. Even the bosses just looked like larger versions of the normal popcorn enemies. I would have like to see the bosses at least look better. But in the bigger scheme of things this is just a minor gripe I have as the main aspect of any shmup is the playability and bullet patterns. While DG is not a bullet hell in the same sense of Cave, there are plenty of bullets thrown towards you rather then a maze of bullets to navigate through. With this DG is fun to play and will always keep you on your toes. From what I’m able to gather the scoring system is simple. Kill as many baddies as possible and don’t die, plus there are stars for you to collect which increase the score multiplier so collecting these is very important. The other main scoring aspect is the usual end of level tally. You only have the scatter gun for you’re primary weapon which you are able to collect power ups to boost its strength. There is also a secondary weapon in the form of a napalm bomb, which only has a small blast radius and weak power, it won’t cancel any bullets so it’s an offensive weapon only. To balance out its weakness you do get a lot to use in the course of the game. The helicopter has a shield which you are able to upgrade 3 levels by collecting items, each upgrade allows for 1 hit.

This system makes DG a hell of a lot easier then other shmups of its ilk, in the same way Blue Wish Resurrection uses the auto-bomb to make the game easier. Due to this 1CC the game is pretty easy infact to beat the game is to 1CC due to the game giving you no continues. Many will want to play the game on hard mode to get a real challenge. There is also an even harder mode for those pro shmuppers. For those of you who want a chance there is also a remix mode. Which changes the bullets patterns more like a Cave game? Instead of a napalm bomb you have the standard beam attack that also slows the ship down to allow you to weave through the bullets. Playing this in normal I found it to be even easier then the normal mode, finishing the game only on my 2nd attempt. So even novices will find themselves playing remix in a harder mode most of the time.

Rating

Even for its short comings Demolition Gunner ISAD is a lot of fun to play and just like the Blue Wish games suit a gamer who is relatively new to shmups before they move onto more complex and challenging titles. Given that this game is freeware it is good quality and not a game to be missed if you like PC shmups. 3.7/5

A Tribute To Dead Bubble Bobble Designer

I've only just read about this but Fukio MTJ Mitsuji the man who designed some great games for Taito including the two best Taito platformers Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands and the shooters Storming Party, Syvalion and Volfied has died. Hes death on the EDIT; December 08 was I believe caused by heart attack plus kidney failure and he entered a coma before he died

It is a great shame to lose such a giant in classic video gaming the cutesy platformer Bubble Bobble is own of the best co-op games anyone can play and for you guys who haven't played Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands should check them out imeadiatly! And while you are there play the other great Taito cutesy arcade platformer The Newzealand Story (Of which my avatar is a picture of), another great classic game of which with the other 2 titles I think of the 3 games as almost a trilogy. If you have the 2 great compliation games called Taito Legends 1 (2 is great for classic shmups) for the PC among other platforms you can play all three platforms platformers plus the Qix remake by MTJ, Volfied. Just do yourself a favor and experience these great classic titles and when doing so think of the brilliant design that was in these games and spare a thought for Fukio MTJ Mitsuji.

EDIT

Well this is a superb example of not believing what you read on the net as fact as it turns out Fukio Mitsuji died in December 08 not August DOH!. But rather then remove this post I thought it better to just leave it up as a testament to a great man in the world of video games. All I can say is live and learn :-/

Blue Wish Resurrection Series

I thought I would quickly get out of the way the review for the shooter that I'm currently spending most of my time playing and that is Blue Wish Resurrection it's a freeware vertical scroller with the shmups of Cave been a big influence. Infact all of X.X Games of which there are 6 titles are all heavily influenced by the manic shooter giant Cave with Eden's Edge been X.X's title which has copied most from one game (Espgaluda) and not just the broader style of Cave that been the high amount of bullets from the enemy and their patterns, the lifebar for the bosses and minibosses and also the fact that the players ship slows down when the shoot button is held down which makes dodging a hell of allot easier. Obviously X.X games have nowhere the same amount of graphic quality and presentation as Cave's but all the important parts are there to make anyone who's a fan of Cave to feel right at home. Blue Wish Resurrection and it's blue label follow-up Blue Wish Resurrection Plus are X.X most popular titles, infact they are one of the most well known and played PC shmups out there atleast in the west anyway. and many gamers who are new to modern shmups will play as they are very noob friendly in their design.

Stage 3 boss fight in BWR, Plus is identical in graphics

BWR has 5 stages all with an end of level boss and some stages have a mid-level boss aswell. 4 difficulty levels of play; easy, original, hell and accel which is hidden (just press up once when easy is selected to play in accel mode). Easy is too easy for most players, original should be the difficulty newcomers should start with. And even hell mode if you're a seasoned vet shmupper. Accel mode imo is sort-of a novelty and not something most games will want to spend great amounts of time playing, As even though the amount of bullets is small compared to the other modes, the speed is just abit too fast to be able to 1CC (1 credit used to finish). Especially as the players ship is still the normal speed which is just no good when the ship slows in concentrated fire. So as I’ve said before most players will want to play the seriously in original or hell and only bother with the lower difficulties for unlocking ships. A player will have just 2 buttons to press shot and bomb, with shot having two modes, tap fire for the normal shot and hold down the fire button for a narrow concentrated shot, slower ship speed and the craft's hitbox tobe visible aswell. Very handy for weaving between bullet hell patterns when fighting the bosses. Bombs are very useful to use just before you die or just to clear the screen of enemies if you're overwhelmed after dieing in the later stages and you need extra time to collect your power-ups. BWR also has an auto-bomb feature which for those who don’t know is a feature which instead of dieing when hit by a bullet (enemy crafts don’t harm you) the game will automatically use a bomb if you have any in stock; although you're score will suffer. It is this feature and the fact that its turn on in the options menu by default thereby allowing for an easier then normal 1cc that many shmup noobs love this title. And many PC shmuppers will make this game one of the first they play seriously if they're trying to play for a 1cc. Me personally am nearly there for a 1cc I just need to improve in the last stage especially against the boss to nail it.

During play there are no collect-em ups to change your weapon but there are bullet power collect-em ups and the occasional bomb pick-up aswell. If you die you don’t lose you're powerups you only need to collect them back up as they move across the screen. BWR has 4 ship types 2 of which are unlockable by 1cc easy mode for the 3rd ship blue peace and 1cc original to unlock the 4th ship Eden’s edge with its characteristics taken from X.X's Eden Edge game. Infact the character model from the game is unlockable aswell. Each of the ships are very different. The 1st ship Blue Wish has a wide angled shot making it a popular choice for quickly killing off waves of weak enemies, with the concentrated shot used for more powerful enemies. the 2nd ship Blue Hope has a more powerful but very narrower shot making it not a good choice for gamers who are scorers as the player has to move allover the screen to kill off all the enemies, with many been missed in the later stages. The 3rd ship Blue Peace is a bit more unique due to its bullets automatically homing into their targets if shot button is pressed down. The homing system even splits up aswell if there is more then 1 enemy onscreen and will allocate more bullets to stronger foes. The power of this weapon is weak too much for me especially fighting bosses but many people like to use it. For its normal shot it does have slightly more power and a bullet spread like Blue Hope. This can be used to fight the bosses but this does make the game harder as the ship will be at full speed. The last ship Eden's Edge is different from the others in the fact that it has 4 options instead of 2 which in normal shot will follow the player in a trail around the screen like in Gradius which group together around the player ship when shot button is pressed instead of tapped. I have not spent much time with this ship but I do think it could be a good choice for scorers who have memorized the enemy ship placement. Although each ship has the same speed having 4 very different shot types can make for very different gameplay and greatly increases the games longitivity.

BWR scoring system has you collecting items which are the bullets of a bigger sized enemy converted into items when it's destroyed. So it's a good idea to kill off a enemy when lots of bullets fill the screen. Also there are hidden chests of items for you to find. Here's a secret, on stage 3 if you find all 10 chests, you can uncover a hidden 1up just before the boss if you hold down fire in the middle of the screen. Back to the scoring system, there is a counter of all the items you have collected. At the end of every level all the items will be converted into points. The challenge is to not lose any items during the level, as if you use a bomb, auto bomb or lose a life you will be penalized. Also if you have auto bomb turned off in the options you will earn slightly more points at the end of level score tally then if you had auto bomb turned on. Another aspect of the score system is the distance you are when you destroy the enemy, the closer the better. Touching a enemy will not kill you but do remember in BWR they will still fire as normal so you will have to be careful. Some might consider this a cheap way to die but it is a minor thing imo.

All in all BWR and BWR+ are great games at will challenge any gamer who wants to take it seriously. It is the fact that it's packed with noob friendly options and the leaning curve of the stages is good for beginners aswell due to levels 1 and maybe 2 been easy to no-miss on original (not get hit during the whole stage) that no matter how skilled a gamer is they should be able to succeed in a goal that many shmuppers set for themselves. That been no-miss a single stage, 1CC and even 1LC (1 life complete). Been able to practice individual stages and end of level boss's is really handy aswell. While I might have been talking about how great this game is for beginners, there are lots to challenge a pro shmupper. As the last two stages are a hell of allot harder then earlier stages. Due to the sheer amount of enemies on screen shooting bullets you will be hard pressed to clear a level without not having to bomb. The stage 4 and 5 bosses are allot harder then earlier bosses aswell, with many different patterns and mazes of bullets sent at you. Another great challenge for the top tier shmupper is a True Last Boss to tackle in hard mode if you managed to 1cc the game. This boss from what i've seen in vids is very very hard and reminds me of boss vids from Cave's Mushihimesama for just how tough it is.

Looking alot simpler, Blue Wish

So far i’ve been talking only about Blue Wish Resurrection but what about the other two games Blue Wish and Blue Wish Resurrection Plus. I will start with Blue Wish. BW is X.X's 2nd game and the difference in BW and his other game Green Wind to his more recent titles is quite allot. For starters they play in windowed mode only and the graphics are a hell of allot simpler. But even though they are (very) rough around the edges the core gameplay is still of the standard of his later games. BW's enemy bullet patterns are very different to the other two games. I found apart from boss fights the levels to be easier then the other two games, with only the last level feeling like the later Blue Wish games. Things are very different when you reach the end of level boss (no mid bosses) the patterns are hard even in original mode with lots of bullet hell patterns needed to be quickly dodged with the player's ship at full speed. Compared to the later games there are allot less touhou type bullet mazes in BW though. There is a TLB in hard mode which you will get to fight no matter how many continues you used. This is the only TLB ive fought out of all 3 games and I can tell you he is stupidly hard. Way too hard for me and I found myself using 8 or 9 credits just on him hehe, even with the bombs his health bar moved down very slowly. The game only has 3 ships, Wish, Hope and Peace although if you use Peace you can’t use bombs making it not so much a choice for noobs. Although Blue Wish is a OK game and would pose more then a challenge if I took it seriously, it doesn't hold a candle to the other two games.

Moving onto Blue Wish Resurrection Plus you will find as opposed to BW, Plus is the same as BWR graphically with only the colours of the ships and background altered. The music has been changed aswell, even though BWR had thumping dance music which did match the gameplay in some aspects, BWR+ does a better job at it. Even the intro and stage select music has been remixed and improved upon. Over then graphical and music Plus just has some tweaks to the bullet patterns with a little bit more bullets been shot out by the enemy. To counter this Plus has a slow down feature which kicks in when a large amount off bullets are onscreen, Usually in boss fights does it kick in but ive noticed in one or two places the slow down finishes in a awkward spot and you're lucky not to get hit, slowdown can be turned off mind you. Other changes to the older version is there are now two bombs a strong powered bomb with limited invulnerability and a weaker bomb with longer invulnerability. You can select between the two by having the shot button held down or not. Other changes are there are allot more chests to pick-up making Plus a better game for score hounds (tip open chests as far to the top of the screen as possible for more items), with highscores allot higher then the normal version. Rather then in BWR accel been a separate mode, accel is a option you can turn on in the options to make the normal 3 modes faster which is a nice feature for the advanced player. BWR+ also has a True Last Boss which you get in hard mode but I believe you need to have accel turned on aswell. I've heard he is easier then BWR TLB due to the slowdown but I’ve never seen it tbh. Another what I believe to be a major difference in Plus is that all four ships are available at the start giving less incentives to those gamers who like to set themselves goals to reach when they play a shmup.

Apart from the original Blue Wish game (which is abit to plain) BWR and BWR+ are some of the best PC games out there that follows the style of Cave. Even though they are freeware they are of great quality maybe not so much graphically but in every other way especially in design. And they should be one of the first games a new PC shmupper sinks his teeth into. I suppose the biggest question would be which of the two to play. While you can try both out I do recommend that Plus is more suitable for the noob due to the slowdown which makes boss fights a hell of allot easier. The fact that Plus has all the player ships unlocked and that BWR is more of a challenge on default I would recommend those shmuppers who like to set goals like no-miss, 1CC etc to pick BWR. While those gamers who prefer to score would be best served playing BWR+ due to it's slightly upgraded score mechanics of two types of bombs, more bullets onscreen to convert to items with bombs or destroyed enemies. And the larger amount of chests to find which all together equals a much larger highscore in Plus over its sibling.

Ratings

With 3 different games to rate it does scoring alittle bit more difficult but apart from BW which I give a 2 out of 5 for been below average from what to expect for a PC shooter. The other two due to been so simlier and both brilliant to play depending on what you want out of a shoot 'em up I will give a equal score of 4 out of 5. All 3 games can be found at X.X's Game Room and for those who like to score here are the highscore threads for BWR and BWR+ at shmups.system11.org, why dont you join the forum and start posting highscores to this and other shmups and while you're there start to socialize with the english speaking shmupping comunity. There you will find out alot of tips and facts about shmups which will develop your passion for playing them.

Nomltest FS

Since this is supposed to be a blog introducing newcomers to all those great PC shmups out there I thought I would start to do so and put writing in a columnist style to bed for 40 winks.

This post is gonna be about the 1st shoot 'em up I played on the PC called Nomltest by the doujin freeware game maker keim. The game is a simple fixed shooter (the screen doesn't scroll) which looks very much like a space invaders clone. I can assure you that even though Nomltest looks like Space Invaders it doesn't play like it as lots of enemy waves zip across the screen in various patterns. The game has no stages instead you are bombarded non stop with ever increasing enemies as the rank increases (game difficulty). Before long you will be dodging like a madman though a screen full of bullets.

You only have a wide angle standard shot as your only weapon but with 3 different patterns each with differing speeds of your ship. Looking at pictures you will of noticed a box surrounding the ship that is for the eat system where depending on which attack your using bullets passing though will be "eaten" after differing short lengths of time. Eaten bullets add to your score and also increase your rank faster in the long run. Personally although I enjoy the eat system and i think it's a great addition, using my PS2 style controller I have to rely on the analog stick as the d-pad is crap. Using an analog stick to make any precise movements is really hard so I'm always killing myself trying to bullet eat. I suppose ill be looking to get hold of a Sega Saturn style controller with a really responsive d-pad.

Kill em off asap otherwise you'll get swamped

Nomltest's scoring relies on eating bullets to get a really good score and pulling off maneuvers where you eat lots of bullets from one enemy bullet pattern reels in a high score and feels very satisfying. Also for every wave of enemy ships you destroy you will get +10 to every eaten bullet, missing a wave decreases the counter by the same amount, Single enemies don't matter. The counter stops at 500 point per bullet and loosing a life will decrease the counter by nearly a half. A often used strategy is to not bother with the bullets at the very start of the game due to bullets eating increases the rank. If you manage to get a really high score which is no easy thing you can unlock two different modes of play. O-gui mode give you the bomb weapon which you can use once a gauge is filled by eating bullets. In Kuidare mode you are unable to shoot but has a system similar to Ikaruga where by which 3 buttons you press you will autmatically eat the same colour bullet your ship is once it enters your force field. Doing so will release a spray of bullets back at the enemy. The difficulty of unlocking the modes is too high, so unless you're a very good shmup player you will need to work hard at reaching a score good enough to unlock them. A fact that on the Shmups.com forum. The Nomltest highscore tables for the two unlockable modes are nearly empty when the normal mode has had many people submitting their scores over the years. There was a file available on the site which unlocked them for you but these links are now dead unfortunatly.

Personally I really enjoyed the game, although some people will be turned off with the simplistic graphics and no scrolling background. I thought the neon space invader graphic style was very original and fitting to what the game is. A no-frills but highly playable freeware title. For those of you who can get past its graphics style will soon be hooked to it's addictive gameplay. Once you get to know the enemies patterns the game is quite easy and has a extremely pleasing rhythm to it as you shoot the enemy and eat their bullets. It's so enticing that many of you will find yourselves still playing the game in the early hours of the mourning. Things are easy to start off but as the rank get higher things start to get very manic and Nomltest will be a challenge to any experience shmup player. The game is a old favorite of the Shump.com forum and was even voted as one of their games to play in last years online shmup tournament. So why don't you head over to the Japanese DL site Vector and download it. But do note there are 2 versions WS (windowed) and FS (full screen), FS is the one to pick as WS does no't have all the features the fullscreen version does.

Rating: 4/5 A very good game for what it is, which is a no-frills freeware game, one that for some can match up to more professionally made shmups for the fun to be had.

If you look at the bottom of this post you will notice that there are some tickboxes I've included for the purposes for site visitors who have played the game to rate the game and we can see if the scores match what rating I've given the game. Sadly I'm unable to have ten tickboxes so we will have to go with a rating of 0 to 5, with 3 been the correct rating for an average game of its genre.

A Little Story

Funny how something bad can turn into something good. For example you wake up one morning with the flu so you phone your work mate who gives you a lift to work that you'll be staying at home today, Later you find out your work mate had been in a car crash, he only had cuts and bruises but the passenger side of the car was totally crushed meaning certain death if you would of been in the seat at that time.

What happened to me is nowhere as drastic as the story I've just told but it is what ultimately brought me to creating this blog. The bad luck I had was the fan off my graphics card falling off, erm melting off would be a better word, since the card was quite old and really needed upgrading anyway it was no major loss in the terms of cash (although i still haven't replaced it due to other priorities with my limited funds). But it did mean I could not play any 3D games due to my gfx card overheating but i could play most 2D games as they didn't overtax my gfx card. I still shudder at the thought of been with no gaming system and having to endure the torture that is the television nowadays urrgggh!

Not been able to play my usual games and been the poor penniless pauper I am it was either Piratebay or a emulator. I choose the later as there are so many great retro games that I missed out on. I started surfing the net for great games of yeasteryear and eventually came across the shoot the core website. For those of you who don't know Shoot the Core was THE website for PC shoot 'em ups (from now on ill use the term shmups instead) it also had a database with hundreds of PC shmups, most of them were Japanese doujin (indie) games which are mostly unknown to gamers in the west. You might of noticed that i have been using words in the past tense, as the website has just recently shut down, a great shame to the shmupping community but steps are been taken to atleast save the database in some form or another. Anyway back to the rest of my story, playing game genres I haven't experienced for a long time I was having a blast playing them. Games which are easy to pick up and don't take any big effort to start playing but are great fun. Simple on the surface but scratch a little deeper and in many cases there is allot there to even keep hardcore gamers happy. Me been a PC gamer for so long I had only been playing those PC fps, rpgs or strategy games that are very deep and have a plot to rival a novel.

I even managed to finish some of the games that Ive never really played before, with me been a Sega fanboy as a kid I missed out on everything Nintendo. Games like Super Mario Bros, Mega Man 1 and Zelda 1, even though the graphics sucked they had playability in spades. Although I will admit to using maps and guides to speed up the time it would take me to clock them, that was especially for Zelda 1 which had many hidden areas and a sizable world that needed mapping out, something I'm not prepared to do as an adult. I really hate to spend too much time grinding nowadays and its a shame as there are many old jrps I wanted to play but know I'll get bored and quit half way through, For example Luna Legend 1 for the PS1, I just cant stomach the combat system but I'm promising myself I will eventually complete it by just taking small bites at a time.

I intend to leave JRPS with slow and boring combat scences well alone.

So all in all in not really bothered that my card has just about bit the dust as I have all these great games to play (great games I'm not playing due to spending way too much time trying to edit this post with the crap and buggy editing toolset grrr.) I love the fact that Ive discovered a great genre that been shmups and finding all these hidden gems from Japan. Been part of the shmupping community is kinda special compared to other gaming crowds due to the commitment and how far they sometimes have to go to get those rare Jap games. I hope anybody who read this gets the urge to try out a shmup or two. Thats it for now, in my next post I will write apout just what makes shmupping (playing shoot 'em ups) so special, as although shmups may seem simple at first glane there is more to them that meets the eye.

Hello World

Welcome to my new blog about the games I play on the PC, The type of games I plan on focusing are shoot 'em ups (also called shmups a term used by many hardcore shmup players), other games I enjoy are platformers like Sonic, Dizzy, Mega man and Tomb Raider, I also am a lover of fps games but it has to be a PC fps as playing a fps on a console controller is just retarded imo and console fps ported to the pc just suck unless the game has been altered in a big way to make up for the faster and more accurate aiming a mouse gives over a joy pad. I’m more for the single player fps like Doom 3, System Shock 2 and Thief then online multiplayer fps like Counter Strike (a bit too elitist for me) but I will have the odd game of TF2 or Quake Live. But unless it’s an arcade type game I’m very big on a game having a good plot.

Here are all the game machines i've ever owned. I still own a PC, GB and A1200.

A good plot can turn a mediocre game into fantastic journey like the Homeworld games the fantastic plot overshadowed the fact that the strategy side was poor as all you needed to do was blob the enemy in most cases to win. Speaking of plot another genre I can be big on is the RPG. I used to be massively into jrpgs since the days of the Mega Drive right up till the PS2 with FFX. Nowadays I’m more into PC rpgs Baulder's Gate series, Dungeon Siege 2 and FPS crossovers like the Elder Scrolls games (I haven’t played Mass Effect yet and i’m really looking forward to it.) The main reason apart from many PC rpgs been more immersive is that many jrpgs just grind way too much with slow random battles (although I hear many newer titles are nowhere near as bad as the old days) It is due to this that I nowadays prefer srpgs like Vandal Hearts or FF tactics and action rpgs like Alundra or old style Zelda of which I recently played Zelda 1 for the nes and liked it so much I finished it. Although I used a map from the net to cut down on time I would of spent mapping and trail and error which would of made me sick of the game enough to abandon it.

Never played before, Zelda 1 & Mega Man 1, Both i liked so much I finished them

I like games in most genres but I only like 1 or 2 titles of a certain genre so I don’t class myself as anything of a fan of said genres. Here are some other games that have a special place in my heart. Street Fighter 2, when I was 11 to 12 I used to spend allot of my time hanging out at a couple of arcades and the SF2 cabinet was the stop I usually spent allot of my time at. Even though I played it allot as Ryu, Ken, Guile or Chun Lee I was never a pro at it although I was very good with special moves and making combos with them. Out of all the fighting games SF2 and its iterations are only the fighting game I ever played (although I have had a few games recently of Melty Blood for the PC and also a bit of Tekken 2). I wouldn't say that I don’t like other fighting games like Mortal Kombat or Fatal Fury its just that I never wanted to take the time and 10 pence pieces to learn the move set of a another fighter, I was happy to get my fighting fix just playing SF2. I cant wait until I buy SF4.

Another genre i’m no major fan of is the strategy genre but I am massive fans of the Homeworld series and the Total War series (still haven’t play the later titles) my favourite game of this type been by far the Rome TW and its add on pack. Even if in RTW the AI was a bit simple nothing could be better then out flanking the enemy with heavy horsemen. Other strategy games I used to love to play when I was a kid but not so much now as I prefer to spend my time playing other games I enjoy more. I especially loved Sid miers games when I had an Amiga 1200 game like the original Civilisation and Colonisation (the theme tune bonny at morn is one of my favourite music from compute games of all time) I also loved his other titles Railroad Tycoon and Sim City Original for the Spectrum +2 and a bit of the later Sim City's for the PC. Before I had my last console pinched i have always enjoyed racing games on each of my games machines just not the PC. I dont know why ive never got into any on the PC as there are some cool multiplayer racing games out there. (something to keep in mind for later I think). Anyway here are some of my favorites, Enduro Racer, Roadblasters, Super Monico GP and ofc the Grand Tourismo Series especially the 2nd game of the series.

Now beat 'em up are another thing I used to love playing them Double Dragon 2, Final Fight and Captain Commando in the arcades and Golden Axe and Streets of Rage 1 & 2 on the Mega Drive. A shame the genre has nearly died out i’m meanstream game development. Going back to when I was a kid I especially loved to play co-op with friends in the arcade, I remember it been mainly Double Dragon everyone would prefer to play if they were short on cash as it was easy to clock the game with just 1 or 2 credits (elbow was a I win button). But I do remember many beat 'em ups were best played on the console as so many of them were credit munchers when you got to the later levels, but them again many genres were the same with many arcade games giving out cheep deaths that were impossible to avoid unless you had played that part before. I think that is the main reason shmups were never at the local arcades I visited was due to that fact. Although there was R-Type and the rail shooter Star Wars at one of my arcade halls but I never really got into them due to been poor. This is the main reason I never really got into the genre (apart from loving R-Type I really loved Gynoug for the Mega Drive that I rented out a couple of times). Although due to the facts of just recently discovering shmups and really loving them and the whole philosophy of them and for some other reason ill tell you in another post shmups are just about the only genre I’m playing at the moment apart from sometimes playing platformers and old emulated Mega Drive games. This is also why I will be posting at the very least for the next month or two allot of Shmup games. But I will try to post the lesser known but a hell of allot of fun titles when I get further into writing for this blog.

R-Type's Famous stage 1 boss.

Gynoug or Wings of Wor for the USA, It had some amaizing artwork for it's time

There is one game I haven’t mentioned yet but I am a big fan of is CCP's Eve Online, The immersive space opera mmo that many ppl in the pc gaming community know about but actually never play due to it been so hardcore and having a steep learning curve (although things are improving with a new tutorial system). Eve online is a mmo like no other due to the sheer amount of things you can do. But this does turn off allot of ppl as eve is a sandbox game and there is nothing to tell you what you should due next, the player needs to go out and make his own adventure. I could rattle on forever about why Eve kicks over mmos arses in terms of depth and tons of other things. Been like the fantastic pvp due to the fact that unlike wow if you get blown up your ship is gone for good and whatever it was carrying will of been looted by the victors (this allows for ppl to be pirates). Also the crafting and economy is by far the most complex of any mmo enough for there to be a full time professional economist been employed by CCP the developers. The game is also very dog eats dog that you will find ppl playing as isk (in game money is the isk) scammers and the spy who spies on the major space holding corporations (guilds of eve). As I said before allot of ppl know about eve due to the fact that so many of the amazing things that happen in the game that you just don’t see in another game. Many of these escapades get published by the press and not just gaming magazines like PC Gamer but mainstream press like the BBC and New York Times. For reasons ill not get into i’m currently unsubscribed but in a month or two I should be back in the game and I will most likely be posting about the game in a blog. Whether its going to be this blog or a totally different blog I’m unsure of, but since this blog is mainly gonna be about freeware or low cost indie gaming I’m leaning to the 2nd choice.

People get very serious playing Eve like this person who has 3 monitors.

Hmmm I think ill call it a night for this my 1st post of my 1st blog ever. I hope you enjoyed what was written here and that you'll also enjoy my further posts I would love some feed back on what you think of my writing style as I don’t know whether to stick to writing in a detailed and long winded style like a newspaper columnist or change to a more formal straight to the point journalistic style. Ill change the comments section to that you can post as an anon and ill keep it like that atleast for a month or two before I change to comments section back to the default log in to comment setup unless you guys want over wise that is.

PS (additional edit) I have learned allot though creating this first post and it's taken a hell of allot longer than I thought I would but hey, It's up now and i've got the ball rolling. I feel very much compelled to add that ive never worked with a program that is such a pain in the ass to laydown pictures and in the size/way you want it. Hopefully as I get further into the tool set i'll pick up some easier tricks.