You may or may not have noticed, but over the last three months or so I have found my articles and blogs to be increasingly cranky. I have been hoping to get away from this attitude in order to bring more insight and entertainment, and I have the perfect solution. My biggest problem has been an attempt to comment on and tackle every big issue in gaming, especially when my views don’t coincide with the rest of the fandom. Simply put, you cannot change the world, and with the way internet fandom works, it seems an especially useless tasks. So while I won’t stop looking at the important issues, perhaps the best form of anger management is to find a happy place. Which brings me to my idea for a new article.
It is quite simple; how about a weekly column on shoot ’em ups? I know there are plenty of sources for these games, but I find that most reviews are simply too generous (see any neo geo review site), filled with spelling errors, or simply too technical for the average fan to chew. My goal would be to write short, sweet reviews of a new shmup each week, from the perspective of someone who knows much about the genre, but has only recently begun to play them (and is quite horrible at them, at least for now). With access to the Virtual Console as well as Gametap, I would have content for the column for a long time coming.
So what do you think? I’m hoping it could be a fresh take on the genre, as well as a chance for you and me to learn more about an often forgotten genre. Fire away with any ideas in the comments section.
I am pro SHMUPS articles. Also, Gradius V is awesome.
im pro shmup articles and games. let me know if you find anything i should be playing. gradius V is awesome indeed, but im not sure its as good as ikaruga.
anyone else looking forward to castle shikigami 3?
Play as many as you can as fast as you can.
I’m looking forward to Castle Shikigami 3 if XS Games does the localization again.
“My name is Ko. Beating down evil!”
Go for it, Shmups are great! If possible, though, try to review ones that are somewhat available. It’s all well and good to hear about how awesome some crazy cute’em up for the PC Engine is/was but that doesn’t get me any closer to actually being able to try my hand at it.
May I also humbly suggest light gun shooters? There’s been a minor resurgence on the Wii as of late.
That reminds me, I got a PC Engine Duo in Japan. I’ll be sure to review all the great shmups for you, TrueTallus :)
True Tallus – that shouldn’t be a problem. I plan on keeping the column going as long as I can with games I have legal access to. That means games on the Virtual Console, the PS2, and of course Gametap, simply because it is something of a shmup haven.