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.