The Ongoing Quest for Shoot'em Up Madness

August 25 2010

Mars Matrix   Capcom

 Mars Matrix is one of the reasons shmups can also be referred to as Bullet Hell shooters.  The screen is literally filled with bullets and bonuses swirling and flying all over the place, and somewhere amongst all of the insanity is your ship.  You choose either a small quick ship with little defense, or a slower ship with much better defenses, and go off to quell the rebellion on Mars.  Both ships have a "suck" weapon, that will suck in enemy bullets and damage enemy ships, collecting energy to create an energy weapon that will attack everything on the screen.  That way you don't have to worry about collecting smart bombs and choosing when to use them.

  Ok, now that the story is covered, let's take a look at this thing.  The waves all start out simple enough, a few cannon fodder wuss enemies will attack you.  As you progress, the enemies become more abundant and their fire becomes more deadly.  This all leads up to a giant boss battle at the end of each stage, and that boss has ridiculous amounts of bullets to fire at you to the point of almost unpreventable deaths.

Before (left) and After (right)

Playing from beginning to end is pretty quick, I blew through it in about 30 minutes.  If I were paying coins to continue every time I saw the "Game Over" screen, it would probably have cost around $6 or $7, but that's the reason these types of games are so difficult.  Arcade owners can't get more kids to pay more money if he can't get a good player on an easier game to give it up or to die quicker.  These things were vicious quarter-eating cathode tube embodiments of the devil himself.  But at least they were addicting, looked good, and played well.  You could probably find it used somewhere for the Dreamcast, but prepare to pay too much money for it.  If you like shmups, you might be able to look past the cost.

What? At the end of the war we find it was pointless?  Shit.

August 3 2010

Gradius/Lifeforce   Konami

Back in the day, there was actually a time where I saw games on the NES before I saw them in arcades.  Two big ones are Gradius and Lifeforce, English versions of the popular Salamander series in Japan amd Nemesis across the pond in Europe..  Before I even touched them in arcades, I learned that the Contra Code worked sometimes and there was also a super warp in Gradius, and Lifeforce's last stage was and still is a pain in the ass.  Just how do I navigate through all of those collapsing sideways columns? Anyway..

Gradius, the continuing evolution of the Scramble-Super Cobra shmup games.  A horizontal point-to-point shooter with levels traversing through bizarre outerspace locations; Easter Island, a Cave, a giant bubble room Rave of some sort.  Or was Easter Island just in the NES version?  I'll have to check our crack research team when they finally stop playin Halo 2600.  Each level ending with a Guardian of some kind, a spaceship with powerful weapons that could be out-maneuvered, out-gunned, out-everything if you collected the right power-ups.  You'd think that if they made these huge ships to destroy you they would be able to maneuver their guns and aim, time their shots, or just install a couple of gigantic fekkin' titanium flyswatters to smack your ship silly.  But they didn't.  This is a space war of attrition.  You will sometimes lose, but sometimes win, and winning brings you back to the beginning to do it all again, and then.. wait, are you sure about that guys?  I thought Lifeforce did that?  Oh.  They both did?  Hmm.. I'll trust you for now.

Then we have the big one, Life Force.  Or Lifeforce.

Lifeforce was more in the line of the old movie from the 1960s Fantastic Voyage, where you take to the insides, literally, of a human body. Your quest: to clean out the body by fighting various enemies, creatures, and bizarre monsters in the human body.  Strangely enough, I do believe in the first level, the boss is the brain, which you destroy.  I'm not too sure how that constitutes saving somebody from internal parasites, but in videogames, Rule #1 is "Suspension of Disbelief".  No, it's not possible, and yes, you should just shut up and keep playing, dipshit.

Eyes?  Check.  Interestingly enough, to make these games have more longevity in the home versions, they made the game a bit longer, and, much like Contra for the NES, much better than the arcade versions.  Gotta give people a reason to shell out cash to buy a cartridge of a game that goes by pretty quick in a play-through in the arcade (but eats lots of coins).

June 29 2010

Sylph Wind  Pauli Merilainen

Only in a demo state, Sylph Wind is an impressive looking game.  Your ship can pick up your enemy's shots, like Ikaruga, and the collection will build up your levels on your ship.  Staying close to enemy fire will reward you with higher levels, but it can get tricky with waves of bullets swarming your ship.  Your ship is armed with a regular gun that can rapid fire with tapping of the key, a roll maneuver which can help you collect enemy fire and avoid enemies, and a smart bomb which, of course, destroys everything on the screen. 

The sounds are simple, and the music is listenable and doesn't interfere with your play.  I'm not sure what became of Sylph Wind, it's a demo from 2007, last updates I saw were in February 2009 with some videos on Youtube, but then things seem to stop.  I wonder if it's coming to PC in shareware or some downloadable retail form? *edit* According to the creator, he's been busy with his day job, so Sylph Wind is currently resting in the "on hiatus" folder.