Gaming History 101

Irem is a developer that was quintessential in the 80s for many of the classic games we know and love, especially on the NES.  It is no shock to me that I just recently found out that among classics like Kung-Fu, Kid Nikki: Radical Ninja and the only playable version of a Ghostbusters video game (Ghostbusters II), that they are also responsible for the impressive shmup R-Type.  For many gamers, you’ve probably seen footage of R-Type or played a game based on it at one point or another in your life.  Furthermore, it has spanned the test of time and continues to see releases even nowadays.  In the late 1980s, with its impressive graphics and a first boss that looked rather close to the xenomorph in the movie Aliens, it was all about making the newest port and getting that screenshot into gaming magazines.  R-Type was ported to so many consoles that the number of ports is longer than the coverage on the versions themselves.

The infamous screenshot that every port wanted to look like.

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