8-Bit Commando
We wanted the best, you know the rest.
A Contra look-alike, that does not stand to its predecessor. But is it THAT bad? Let’s find out! The game greets you with a nice soundrack and pretty good 8-bit graphics. Unfortunately the gameplay is ruined by bad controls especially in terms of jumping. And when you can’t land on a platform becouse of fucked up controls - you know that this game has an issue. A prefect run can be ruined by a single jump and then it’s back to the beggining or nearest check point (THANKS GOD FOR THAT). Also this game has a TIMER. And when such slow-paste game makes you rush the level becouse of the mistakes you made before - it doesnt’t help the situation at all. At least it has decent multiplayer.
– Real player with 18.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up 2D Games.
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Rather than improving upon Contra / Probotector-games due better tech nowadays, this game just feels cumbersome (I really don’t have more fitting word here).
Main reason why I don’t recommend buying this game due how blatantly unfair this game is.
Note, this doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be able to beat this game. But it is still still unfair.
- First of, and the majour flaw: The checkpoint-system is for the most part pointless / not worth it. In fact, it is just better to restart the the whole stage most of the times since they’re really short.
– Real player with 7.3 hrs in game
Ikaruga
From Treasure, the developer behind classic games like Guardian Heroes, Radiant Silvergun and Gradius V, Ikaruga is the game that really stands out.
Initially launched for arcades, Ikaruga found most of its success on the Nintendo GameCube not only because of its extreme difficulty, but because of its excellence in game design. You can move your ship in 2D, shoot bullets and charge your special shot like any other shoot ‘em up (shmup). But there’s a single game mechanic that changes everything: there’s two types of enemies, black ships that shoot black bullets and white ships that shoots white bullets, and you can change the polarity of your ship to black or white. Simple enough, this latter fact is what made the game be considered a groundbreaking masterpiece among shmups: you absorb enemy bullets to charge your special shot if your ship’s polarity matches the color of the enemy bullet, and you do double damage if your ship’s polarity is opposed. So, as you skillfully change polarities to do damage you also find yourself taking enemy bullets instead of avoiding them. And every single bullet is beautifully coreographed with the stage, with the pacing matching the rhythm of the music, something that seems basically impossible given all the chaos on the screen. It’s absolutely genius.
– Real player with 258.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up Great Soundtrack Games.
Ikaruga is a harsh mistress. She is a love you cannot conquer, she is a complex beauty who demands perfection. Your best will never truly please her, she will make you feel inadequate at every moment, and yet you cannot stop trying to win her heart. When you are with her, any mistake you make will sting a thousand times worse. And she will make you furious, she will make you cry, she will drive you crazy, but you cannot stop loving her, because there is nothing else in the world that can compare to what she is.
– Real player with 74.6 hrs in game
Major Stryker
It’s a very fun MS-DOS Classic game to play since I was Child.
As for the Storyline, it’s painlessly simple: Earth Survives WW3 with most of humanity dead & plauged by a lack of Resources. Then an Alien Race known as the Kretons jump to Earth using a Wormhold and plans to conquer it as if things weren’t bad enough. So the call goes out to Major Harrison Stryker, a hero of the Recent World War who takes a Special Attack Starship into the Wormhole to destroy the Kreton Homeworlds on the other side. The Problem is that the Kretons have also taken Human Hostages and you need to free them by ramming into their Holding Cells using your ship since they’re immune to Weapon Fire.
– Real player with 10.3 hrs in game
_Note:
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This can be legally downloaded for free (or played in a web browser) thanks to it being made Freeware in 2006. If you buy this, it’s for the enjoyment of officially having it in your Steam library or to support the dev.
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You’ll likely want to fix the aspect ratio by going into the Major Stryker folder and editing STRYKER.conf by setting “aspect=true” in the render section. It’s passable in 16:9 but intended to be played in 4:3._
– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game
Raptor: Call of the Shadows (1994 Classic Edition)
EDIT: On a widescreen monitor, you may need to change DOSbox settings (edit RAPTOR.CONF in Notepad to change “aspect=false” to “aspect=true”) to fix the aspect ratio. You may also need to disable Steam Overlay then, since the pop-up will get stuck in the margin.
This is a classic top-scrolling shooter from 1994, with an upgrade shop system being the main selling point. That is, your score is measured in credits which you can use to buy upgrades for your ship between levels. The graphics are pretty detailed for the time, similar to an Amiga or Atari ST game, especially the scrolling terrain. Sound effects are crunchy and satisfying, and the cheerful MIDI music is simple but effective. Keyboard, joystick, and mouse control schemes are available.
– Real player with 18.9 hrs in game
Raptor: Call of The Shadows Versions is an Awesome MS-DOS Game, I’m a Professional at this game & I grew up with this Old DOS Classic.
Your engine’s turbines roar as you scream out of the sky. Startled troops look up just in time to see your wing cannons blaze. You feel the plane buck slightly as your missiles streak toward their targets. A flash in the distance tells you that they have done their job and so have you. MegaCorp pays well, for those good enough to survive. They call you into the shadows with dreams of wealth, and you answer, the only way you know how.
– Real player with 9.3 hrs in game
Gunstar Heroes
Excellent sidescrolling action - frantic and fluid with tight controls and a tight soundtrack. One of the best Sega Mega Drive games I have played. Highly recommended!
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
ARCADE GAME SERIES: GALAGA
If you’ve ever played the original arcade game, you won’t notice any difference playing this one. It plays exactly like the arcade original. However, I don’t like the fact that the fire button is defaulted to the oversized spacebar. By default, the game is meant to be played with the left hand utilizing the movement of the ship (ie the arrow keys for example) and the right hand pushing a button to fire. This will require a player to have to “cross his hands” in order to use his right hand to press the spacebar. My suggestion is to allow the player to map any key he wants for movement as well as firing. Otherwise, change the default button to fire to say the Enter key on the number pad. Overall, this is a great game and the way it’s set up now, didn’t keep me from scoring 999,990, taking the top spot on the learderboard as well as completing successfully all 20 achievments in the game.
– Real player with 9.7 hrs in game
Great game, terrible port.
I love Galaga, but this port needed more work.
- Controllers\Joysticks not officially supported, and only kinda work
I tried using an Xbox 360 controller and it did work. However there’s no joystick deadzone, so if your joystick isn’t PERFECTLY centered at rest then you’ll be unable to control your ship properly.
Come on, who forgets to put decent joystick support in an arcade game?
- Can’t rebind keyboard keys
Just…why?
- Poor fullscreen support (Edit: kinda sorta fixed, see revisit edit at bottom)
– Real player with 7.8 hrs in game
Raiden III Digital Edition
Poor Raiden III. This game has had a long history of being bashed for the dumbest reasons, and now it’s getting bashed because the developers weren’t interested in working on a years-old PC port that works perfectly fine on newer PCs.
The slower ship speed was always the absolute biggest complaint… but it ALWAYS comes from people who worship the older Raidens. The game was always called too easy… which is quite mystifying as it’s actually quite hard, and many of the people claiming it’s too easy were playing on an easier than standard difficulty. Many of these people also cannot make a dent in the older Raidens which they are directly comparing to, games filled with absolute bullshit. It’s really bizarre how people will fetishize those older games like that.
– Real player with 21.5 hrs in game
A huge fan of the Raiden series. I especially enjoyed Raiden and Raiden II – the latter being one of my favourite shmups of all time. I also played Raiden DX just a bit (very close to the style of Raiden II). I have also played through the Raiden Fighter Aces trilogy on Xbox 360 – Raiden Fighters, Raiden Fighters 2, and Raiden Fighters Jet, and enjoyed them although they are not originally Raiden titles. I tended to dislike the move to 3D backgrounds, as with Raiden III, IV, and V. I played IV and enjoyed it. Raiden V is a bit too long and drawn out with the story inclusion. Playing it made me want to revisit the older 2D background titles. Long story short, I finally came back to play the only title I had never played, Raiden III.
– Real player with 17.8 hrs in game
Samurai Aces III: Sengoku Cannon
Better than OK, but not a good or great experience is to be had with Samurai Aces III. As far as shooters go, Samurai Aces III is on the easy side. The game runs at 30fps, but I didn’t experience any difficulty maneuvering given the “precise” fire button option for firing/moving around. Some don’t care for the 2D sprites on 3D backgrounds, but I liked it in this game. I recommend setting the scan-line option to maximum for smoothing out the rough edges.
For a non-arcade game, the endings for each of the characters, frankly, stinks. A written summary personalized for each character? No drawings or anything substantial? Outside of filling out your achievement stack, there is no incentive to play again after beating the game once since there is nothing memorable about it.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
God bless this company for porting all these amazing Psykio games! It’s so amazing to see the Sengoku trilogy on Steam! Psykio, and especially the Sengoku trilogy need a lot more love. One of the best shmup series’ from one of the best shmup creators. I think these Steam ports are much more seamless than the Switch ports. One bug report though: I put in the code to unlock the extra characters and it worked, but when I choose Junis sometimes the game crashes. Otherwise perfect though.
– Real player with 12.8 hrs in game
SNK 40th ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION
SNK 40th Anniversary Collection is a prime example of the sum being greater than its parts. Before I go on, this is the first time I played any of the arcade versions. Of the NES games back in the day, I only played Ikari Warriors I, II, and about 5 minutes of Ikari III (It was terrible then and it is terrible now).
Almost every single game in this collection borders on impossibly difficult to play. Additionally, most of these games did not age well; more than two-thirds of these games are just plain awful. Ikari Warriors I (NES & Arcade), Psycho Soldier (Arcade), Crystalis (NES), Iron Tank (NES), and to a lesser extent Athena (Arcade only) are the highlights. The rest are absolute bombs to middling at best. I really enjoyed Psycho Soldier, though. If you’re in a down mood, play this game. With its bubble gum-like voice, music, and singing, you’ll be walking on sunshine in no time…as long as you’re using the rewind feature. Which brings us to the saving grace of the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection - Rewind.
– Real player with 50.6 hrs in game
I really can’t recommend this set. I’d like to, I love old collections. I am completely in favor of preserving games, any games, so they can be seen by anyone who wants to. I don’t even mind the fact that a lot of games in this are bad. Bad games deserve preservation too. But I do wish more games on here were good. But worse than that, the collection as a whole suffers some major issues that really set me off. The controls being the biggest problem. A lot of the games in this set used special control mechanics in the arcade. That’s all well and good for the arcade, but it did make home ports that used more general controls harder to implement. They did their best here, utilizing a twin-stick style control for a lot of their games. But it doesn’t always work as intended. And worse, there is a glitch in there somewhere where every now and then it just reads one of the joysticks being full one direction, and never resets it. So every now and then - and it happens fairly frequently to be honest - you’ll just start veering off in one direction for a while. Combine that with controls that feel sloppy to begin with, and that’s a major flaw.
– Real player with 41.2 hrs in game
Steel Empire
The war between your nation, the Republic of Silverhead and the Motorhead Empire has been fought for many years. The Empire has maintained superiority over you because it is a wealthy nation with many resources. The Republic is known for its brave warriors; now it is time to take the war to the Empire. Lead the Army south to liberate the city of Rahl and drive out the Empire once and for all. Time to choose and board your Airship Captain. You can choose a lighter, faster, less-armored plane or a heavier, slower, more-armored plane, depending on your preferences. Choose your level of difficulty; there are 4 to choose from. Now take to the skies Captain, and lead your nation to Victory.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
-=The Good=-
Nice-sounding battle music
Upgraded visuals over Genesis version
Good control and hit detection
An extra sub-boss near the end
Detailed spritework
Cool Steampunk setting
Extra parallax scrolling added to some backgrounds
-=The Bad=-
Noticeable artifacts in movies
Lots of typos
Odd mix of sprites and non-sprite effects
Strange sprite outline issues
Some stuttering at times
-=The Details=-
Steel Empire was a game originally released on the SEGA Genesis back in 1992, when the influx of shmups for the system was dying down. It made a name for itself by being a well made game with a Steampunk setting that differed from a lot of the other shmups coming out at the time, along with a somewhat movie-like presentation. In time, the game was ported to the GameBoy Advance in 2004 and the DS in 2014. And this game is more or less a port of the DS version.
– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game