Posts Tagged ‘defender’
Podcast: What the Shmup
One of the oldest and most popular genres in gaming is the “shoot-em-up” or “shmup” for short. Whether you’re a space ship, a young girl, or even a winged pod the basic goal is to navigate the screen, rack up points, and don’t die. Fred and Jam dive into the origins of the shmup, the sub-genres that exist, and some of their personal favorites.
Defender (Williams)
As a classic Defender‘s reputation is one of those titles that surprisingly few people have played. I know as a child I was discouraged by the looping screen – unlike Asteroids the screen would scroll with your ship, looping after you reach the edge of the map. Not only that, it was a game where you tried to survive a “wave” of enemies and protect soldiers on the ground. In the days of Gears of War’s “horde” mode and various other versions of the same concept, this is nothing new, but it was difficult to wrap my head around in the early 80s. It was also really difficult, which is now a staple of the shmup genre but back then it was discouraging next to Space Invaders and Pac-Man.
Gaming History 101 