In the good ol' days of the 1970s and early 1980s, before the age of consoles and home computers, if a kid wanted to play a video-game he'd have to head on over to an amusement arcade and put 10p in a slot and stand at a machine. For this he'd usually get about three or four minutes of entertainment or one minute if it was something like Defender, Tempest, Robotron or Centipede. Most would come to be known as "shoot 'em ups". The concept was simple: control a blob, with pixels the size of ball-bearings, around a screen and shoot any other thing that moved.
They were fun, while they lasted, and were based around the concept that most people enjoy firing at things and watching them explode. Nowadays, of course, when you think of a "shoot 'em up" video game they normally come in first-person variety hence the term "First Person Shoot Em Ups" or "FPS" for short. These can be fun (No One Lives Forever, Medal of Honour and Bioshock were just a few of my favourites) but when you get to a certain age they become repetitive and can just make you feel a tad queasy.(I can't play a FPS now for longer than 15 minutes before I start to feel sick - and much prefer the third person variety!) Luckily for me, the pleasure received while playing the old-fashioned variety of shoot 'em up games never gets old and my innate urge to shoot and destroy can still be satiated with this older variety (hence my term "Shoot and Blast" games).
Here are my Top 5 indie "Shoot & Blast" games that are available from Steam:
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Alien Zombie Megadeath is an absorbing shooter that has some of the most satisfying sounds and explosions you can wish for in a blast 'em up game. Your character, dressed in a space-suit and jumping around between five or six platforms, attempts to survive various waves of aliens by shooting at them with his laser gun. Improvements to this weapon come in the form of power-ups which you gain by just coming into contact with the necessary icon. The difficulty rises at just the right pitch.
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Everyday Shooter is an artsy version of your classic "twin-stick" shoot 'em up game. ("Twin Stick" meaning you move with the WASD keys and fire with the arrow keys.) There are only 8 levels but each one has its own type of mechanic which forces you to play each level slightly differently giving the gameplay experience more variety. The other USP of the game lies in the sound whereby explosions are highlighted by musical accompaniment - usually in the form of guitar chords. This, again, gives a unique feeling to the gaming experience.
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Geometry Wars is the grand-daddy of them all. This is the one that you'll keep coming back to again and again. With this classic twin-stick game, you guide a strange crescent-shaped object inside the screen while avoiding your attackers that come in the form of different shapes and colours. Each shape, or enemy, has their own certain way of moving and you have to anticipate this as you go around blasting them with laser fire - which gets more powerful as you progress. The wild explosions create a kaleidoscopic firework display on your screen which is so hypnotising that you'll want to attempt to beat your Top 10 scores again and again and again. As the difficulty increases the action gets more wild and frenetic. Definitely the most addictive of the bunch.
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Shoot Many Robots, with its hillbilly and deep-south feel is a platform shoot 'em up game with a side-scrolling element to it that has you travel from left to right to complete levels. As you go you obliterate robots in their droves with your guns that can be equipped and upgraded when you finish those levels; giving the game a basic RPG feel. SMRs is not really a deep game but totally nuts. Yeh, you collect nuts as you go along and use these as the currency to upgrade those weapons and your clothing- other than this, you shoot many many many robots. Good for a 30 minute blast.
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Zuma's Revenge, the sequel to Zuma's Deluxe, has a winning formula that has been copied, adapted and tinkered around with by other gaming companies for years. You control a frog that is positioned in a fixed place but which revolves around an axis. A ball of a certain colour appears in its mouth and it's your job to fire it at another ball of the same colour which is part of a chain of balls heading along a path towards a hole. Match three of the same colour and all balls of that colour in that link explode, thus making the whole chain shorter and easing your task which is not to allow the chain to reach the hole. Wipe out the chain and it's onto the next level. Fun, simple and addictive.
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Honourable Mentions
Mutant Storm Reloaded is another twin-stick shooter that consists of short, 30-40 second levels or "rooms" which you plough through by destroying the aliens inside. There are about 96 levels to get through and each one has 7 difficulty levels represented by different colour belts, from white (easiest) to black (hardest).
Titan Attacks is an extremely simple Space Invader type game that just has you blasting at a screen aliens before moving you onto increasingly more difficult screens. After each screen you're given the option to upgrade your ship in different ways. The point is to get as far as you can and beat your high-score. Fun and addictive.
Inferno is by a fine company called RadianGames who have produced a fine stable of quality shoot 'em up games but which are sadly unavailable on Steam. This one has you negotiating levels of increasing difficulty where you blast away at various blobs and upgrade your ship at "shops" along the way. You can purchase this, and other RadianGames, at Gamer's Gate.
Super Crossfire also hails from RadianGames and is also unavailable on Steam. This Space Invader type game has the same type of gameplay mechanic as Titan Attacks but is just that little bit more faster-paced and frenetic. All RadianGames have excellent, pumping soundtracks and when played loud they really get you buzzing!
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