Worst shmups!

[Captain Wrong]

IT's easy to talk about our favorites, but maybe more fun to talk about the worst ones! Let's face it, there were a lot of generic me-too, shmups in the early 90s, but I'm looking for a turd among turds!

My nomination (aside from the shmups on the Action 52, P-U!!!) is Earth Defence (or Defends, depending on if you're going by the packaging or title screen) for the Genny. Bland and boring, you fly over large stretches of background where nothing happens. No enemies, nothing. WTF! Graphically, it looks very Fami, which isn't a bad thing if you're playing the Fami!!! Everything about this game screams no budget. I think I stick this in once, and shelved it permanently. At least the Action 52 has the scream sample they use in every game when you die, so it's good for a laugh. Earth Defence just puts me to sleep.

Makes me wonder why Realtec went to the trouble of defeting the lock out to put out crap like this. :P

[Kroogah]

Global Defense for the SMS. Blagh.

[Ascending Wordsmith]

The monotony in Mag Max makes it one of the worst SHMUPs ever. It's like playing a SHMUP on someone's front yard; the background never changes... never! That green grass and those dirt pathways are infinite.That is unless you enter a portal and are taken to the subterrean levels. This level is equally boring. Coming against you are trios of flying Mickey Mouse ears. Once you destroy the uninspired hydra, you continue on in the same level for eternity. That is unless of course you enter a portal and are taken to the surface... the ridiculously boring level you previously tried to escape from.

[Kid Ice]

Gigawing 2. You go through the entire game in 10 minutes.

the kid

[Tetsu]

I second Giga Wing 2. The backgrounds are pretty, but the music is uninspired, the gameplay simple to master ('use special move at exact moment to collect tons of gems') and the game just seems sloppy. Even the 4 player simultaneous mode, which is one of the reasons I bought the game, is utter crap.

[Arcade Antics]

Rats, PC Kwaj took mine. I'll second MagMax. The least fun shmup I've played in a while.

[Sothy]

Capn wrong lickz ballz :lol:


**launches full salvo from kingdom arts**

hahahah sucker.

[Raccoon Lad]

Hey Cap'n Yashiro, have you ever tried Global defense with 2 controllers?

It's a pretty poor game with just one controller, but if you hold right and press 2 twice on pad 2, you can play the game how it was intended...Robotron style!

Global Defense is based on a (Japan Only?) Sega arcade game S.D.I. Strategic Defense Initiative, which was controlled with a Joystick and a trackball. The 2 controllers code makes the game MUCH more playable, I just tried out that code for the first time the other night, and it makes the game 100 times better!

As for really bad shooters, I HATE Dino Riki on the NES.

[DDCecil]

I too hate Dino-Riki with a passion. My worst would have to be Rock On for the PC Engine. Though the opening story is Zero Wing quality, the game itself just plain bites.
Hey kids! Import game... Rock On!

[Metrackle]

To me, the worst shooter ever is Deep Blue for TurboGrafx16. Just about everything is wrong with this game. You play as a very slow and ugly ship called A.N.G.E.L., and you move underwater shooting up fish (Darius this ain't). You have only one life, but your ship can take many hits. Unfortunately, this does not help at all, as your ship moves as slow as molasses and enemies swarm you, not to mention that your ship has very puny weaponry, ranging from a pea shooter to a thin, purple laser, but at least you can fire, because the enemies DO NOT FIRE ANY PROJECTILES. Instead, the enemies charge at you in various patterns, and the bosses just toss enemies at you. Music is highly forgettable, everything looks dull, and the gameplay is very boring to boot. Still not as bad as Action 52, but in my opinion, no game can be worse than Action 52.

[rbudrick]

Any shooter with no ending to that you bust your frikkin balls on to get to the end where there's no ending is the worst. Xevious, Dino Riki, tiger heli, magmax, seicross, some versions of Star Force, and many others I can't think of now.

-Rob

[NE146]

Well.. a lot of the shooters you mentioned were made before the whole "boss" idea became popular, so you gotta cut them some slack. ;) Hey at least Xevious had that big boss ship :)

[Kid Fenris]

How about this one? (Warning: Not for the easily offended.)

http://www.classicgaming.com/shmups/reviews/toilet_kids/toilet.htm

[rbudrick]

Well in that case, What about Choaniki, Great Brother?!!!

--Damn...that's a messed up game.

-Rob

[ManekiNeko]

F-16 City War was dismal... so were a lot of the other shooters designed by unlicensed game developers like Color Dreams and
B(uttm)unch Games. Early Japanese NES shooters were the pits as well... games like Formation Z that were so bad they were never released in the United States. You may have played them on a multicart or emulator before, though.
Toilet Kids wasn't completely without merit... it was a solid, if distasteful shooter. Here's a fun fact: the designers of that game went on to translate Lunar to the Game Boy Advance!

JR

[The32xMemorial]

Anyone here try Planet Joker for the Saturn? It's a 2-D shooter with 3-D visuals thats contains both horizontal and vertical action... if you wanna call it action. Awful! Just awful!

Choaniki (Super Big Brother) IS weird. A GAY shooter? Who thought that up? Those wacky Japanese! I must admit, I kept playing just to see the bizarre visual imagery, but that damn game is hard (no pun intended.)

[ROBOTRON]

X-Com-pretty to look at, but boring
Deep Blue-also pretty, but too dang slow
Battle Gareaga-Gimmie a break! Way too many bullets!
Aero Fighters-uninspired
Ordyne-too silly and cartoony

[E Nice]

A/X-101 Sega CD. A/X-101 was so slow and it was hard to make out at time what you had to shoot at. Though it was easier to play than say Microcosm or Novastorm, which were flawed in their own right.

[Neo-Jorge]

It has to be bio-metal for the SNES , With the horrible 2 unlimited soundtrack.....LOL.....



Thanks