Adrenalin

Masculinity can be defined by two aspects: the cocktail adrenalin+ testosterone added to the liking for shooters.

Shooters, generally on a coin-op platform, were a dominant genre in the realm of early videogames. It’s easy to recall Galaxian, or Tempest, one of the first games to bring deepness to game mechanics. I would like to highlight one among them: Robotron 2084, the first game I ever knew that needed two joysticks to be used simultaneously, one for movement and the other for shooting.

Of course, the genre never died. People everywhere, especially asians as it seems, keep on devouring one shooter after another: Ikaruga, Bangai-O, Radiant SilvergunContinue reading Adrenalin

A shmup is a shmup is a shmup

http://www.shmups.com/
http://shmup.com/

the last real classic game genre still alive – games in which score, skill, technique, replayability, and finely honed 2-dimensional gameplay are all-important.

Underrated by some as if they were relics from ancient times, the truth is that shmups are everlasting, because in their core lies the essence of the videogame: easy to understand, hard (but rewarding) to master, challenging and enjoyable. From time to time I would go back to the old black&white (yellow and green?) gameboy to see if the experiences of life have made me more skillful and I´m finally able to finish R- Type (you already know the answer, save me the shame); but then, if someone asked me for an example of a high- quality modern videogame with all the lusty graphics and powerful sound, my trouble would be whether to answer ikaruga (Dreamcast and Gamecube) or rez (Dreamcast and PS2)… I think I´d say ikaruga and save rez for if I was asked if videogames can be art. 😉

Wait… dunno what a shmup is? Look it up in the dictionary. C’est facile á lire!