The Evolution of Simple Shoot Em Up Gaming
From simple shoot em up fun, to build them up and shoot em down, how this platform has changed
The shoot ’em up genre has changed over time.
It’s split out into so many different types of games. Today I want to talk about simple platform-based games. Even those have changed over time.
One thing stayed the same though. The popularity of these simple games. Today the world’s most popular game is Fortnite. It’s today’s platform shoot ’em up.
The early console-based games like Sea Harrier or desert strike were all simple rail-based games. A huge jump forward in graphics and gameplay from the arcade stuff we knew like space invaders.
At the time in the mid to late 80’s it was all quite tame stuff (although it seemed shocking at the time). Shooting people and things on a games console was new, and it was bloodless.
That all changed in 93 with the release of the first doom game. First released on MS-DOS for early PC’s. It was mercilessly copied onto floppy disks. Then in 94 it finally made it onto consoles.
The first shoot em up, that dealt in blood and guts. It was hugely popular and moved the genre on. It certainly helped pave the way for the first grand theft…
