Shoot 'em up: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 02:52, 11 February 2006

Revision as of 11:53, 12 February 2006

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[[Image:Robotron:_2084.png|thumb|right|''[[Robotron: 2084]]''<br />Arcade - ©1982 [[Williams Electronics]]]]

'''Multi-directional shooters''', also called '''area shooters''', allow complete freedom of movement (and shooting) in a 2D environment. This subgenre originated with [[Atari]]'s ''[[Asteroids]]'' in [[1979]]. The playing field may or may not be restricted. These games are unique from other shoot 'em ups in that they often use two [[joystick]]s as the input; one (left) joystick used for movement, and the other (right) used for firing. This style was popularized by [[Eugene Jarvis]] in the several titles he created for [[Midway]]/[[Williams]] and is an easy and effective means of allowing indepedentindependent moving and firing. This unique input configuration often left console ports with only a crude approximation of the arcade controls, resulting in the use of four buttons as directional firing, or the use of both the first and second player controllers to achieve the desired effect. Many modern [[video game console|console systems]] have two analog joysticks on the controllers, which yields congruent control scheme. [[Image:Time_Pilot.png|thumb|left|''[[Time Pilot]]''<br />Arcade - ©1982 [[Konami]]]]

Many multi-directional shooters, such as the [[Massively multiplayer online game|MMOG]] ''[[SubSpace (computer game)|SubSpace]]'' and ''Asteroids'' utilize a different control scheme utilizing thrust. In these games, there is more a physics-based movement based upon thrusting in directions to either increase or decrease velocity. The games where this system is used are not [[manic shooter]]s, and generally focus on some other goal.