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Post by elektrolurch on Jan 27, 2015 17:12:09 GMT -5
Just played some Tyrian. Great game, but it got me thinking.
Although i used to play lots of DOS games in the early to mid ninties, i could not think of too many notable DOS shmups.
Tyrian,off course. And Raptor. But nothing else really notable.
Why is it that compared to consoles and arcades, and also other home computer systems, DOS PCs esp. in that time period had few really good shmups?
My explonation would be that because of the rise of doom and FPSes and 3D games in general(think of descent), shmups seemed old fashioned.
Any other ideas?
And are there any really awesome DOS shmups i do not know about?
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Post by Magma MK-II on Jan 27, 2015 17:59:46 GMT -5
Other than Tyrian and Raptor I can think of Stargunner.
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Post by Weasel on Jan 27, 2015 18:12:36 GMT -5
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Post by alphex on Jan 27, 2015 18:55:04 GMT -5
Not that they're awesome, but there have been a couple of shmups for the PCs. I mean, the consoles of that time period had a ton of jump & runs and a couple of shooters. How many truly notable j&rs from that era were released for the PC? Keeping that quotient in mind, the amount of respectable shmups for DOS is actually pretty high. Tubular WorldsPrototypeWingstar |
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Post by Bobinator on Jan 27, 2015 21:49:15 GMT -5
How many truly notable j&rs from that era were released for the PC? Oh, plenty. Off the top of my head, there's the Commander Keen series, Duke Nukem 1 & 2, Jazz Jackrabbit, Jill of the Jungle, Captain Comic. And quite a few more if we're counting ports, so the list grows to include stuff like Mega Man X, Rayman, Aladdin, and a few others. Sorry to go off topic, just saying there's a good number of platformers out there on DOS, although the best usually come straight from Apogee or Epic, to be honest. |
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Post by Reiji-kun on Jan 27, 2015 23:17:21 GMT -5
Major Stryker comes to mind as far as DOS shmups go. Although Stryker is sort of underwhelming to play, even for an Apogee game... at least in my opinion.
Maybe I should revisit and reevaluate it at some point. It's still worth a shot regardless. Best of all, it's freeware nowadays.
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Post by Weasel on Jan 27, 2015 23:34:08 GMT -5
Major Stryker comes to mind as far as DOS shmups go. Although Stryker is sort of underwhelming to play, even for an Apogee game... at least in my opinion. Maybe I should revisit and reevaluate it at some point. It's still worth a shot regardless. Best of all, it's freeware nowadays. The most redeeming quality of it, IMO, is the rocking Bobby Prince soundtrack. |
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Post by elektrolurch on Jan 28, 2015 5:32:53 GMT -5
How many truly notable j&rs from that era were released for the PC? Oh, plenty. Off the top of my head, there's the Commander Keen series, Duke Nukem 1 & 2, Jazz Jackrabbit, Jill of the Jungle, Captain Comic. And quite a few more if we're counting ports, so the list grows to include stuff like Mega Man X, Rayman, Aladdin, and a few others. Sorry to go off topic, just saying there's a good number of platformers out there on DOS, although the best usually come straight from Apogee or Epic, to be honest. that is kind of the reason i started this discussion. there were plenty of very enjoyable plattformers. but only very few enjoyable shmups. i can remember a few more mediocre ones..... |
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Post by Gendo Ikari on Jan 28, 2015 6:16:49 GMT -5
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Post by alphex on Jan 28, 2015 7:41:15 GMT -5
My point was that given the genre-ratio even on consoles (were pretty much every other game seemed to be a j&r), the pc did rather well as far as shmups were concerned, as they were a much more obscure genre, even on consoles.
And the DOS port of Mega Man X is anything but notable.
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Post by jorpho on Jan 28, 2015 9:58:21 GMT -5
I really quite liked Cash Invaders. Not a long game, and sadly a bit obscure, but enjoyable. members.home.nl/bas.de.reuver/cashinvaders/I also recommend Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom and its sequel, Return of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom. (They were still technically for sale until a couple of years ago, but I think the original author fell gravely ill and I'm not quite sure what the status of the games is anymore.) The Bitmap Brothers' Xenon 2 came out for DOS, too, but that was on a bunch of platforms. |
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Post by The Great Klaid on Jan 28, 2015 12:11:40 GMT -5
Well wasn't smooth scrolling tough to get on PC for the longest time? I mean we've named plenty of games, but I generally don't associate PC with 2D action games, and I grew up into the master race.
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Post by Snarboo on Jan 28, 2015 16:36:41 GMT -5
Given how shmups function, smooth scrolling theoretically isn't as much of an issue because they can scroll the background instead of the screen, and I believe that's how most shmups on PC worked.
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Post by starscream on Jan 28, 2015 17:10:10 GMT -5
Not the best hardware for this purpose (no hardware sprites etc.), high prices, different audiences..I guess these may all have been contributing factors, stunning development. Historically, it looks to me like there was something of a shift during the middle of the 80s. American computer game producers where focusing more on genres such as RPGs, simulations etc. The 16bit follow ups (Amiga and ST) to the C64 and the Atari 8bit line didn't quite take off, and consoles where rising (again). The situation was different in Europe, it took a bit longer for the IBM PC platform to achieve dominance there. When ports of games from the traditional 2D action genre where getting more of an equal status compared to other platforms and commercial developers where also releasing exklusives, Windows 95 was already around the corner. + the mentioned shift to 3D was taking place.
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Post by The Great Klaid on Jan 28, 2015 20:30:03 GMT -5
Given how shmups function, smooth scrolling theoretically isn't as much of an issue because they can scroll the background instead of the screen, and I believe that's how most shmups on PC worked. That's so brilliant! I was actually kind of taken aback. |
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