Wayoftherodent's Top 50 Shooters of All Time

Hope you like Commodore64 titles, among other forms of nostalgia.

http://www.wayoftherodent.com/guests...b_shooters.htm

01. Robotron
02. Space Invaders
03. Defender
04. Tempest
05. Rez
06. Star Wars
07. Galaxian
08. Gradius
09. Ikaruga
10. Asteroids
11. R-Type
12. Doom
13. Centipede
14. Missile Command
15. Sinistar
16. Star Force
17. Tempest 2000
18. Galaga
19. Moon Cresta
20. Llamatron
21. Uridium
22. Metal Slug
23. Geometry Wars
24. Scramble
25. Afterburner
26. Jet Pac
27. Xevious
28. Commando
29. Radiant Silvergun
30. Juno First
31. Phoenix
32. Bangai-O
33. Drop Zone
34. Vanguard
35. Viewpoint
36. Gunhed
37. Gorf
38. Delta
39. Swiv
40. Side Arms
41. Thunderforce IV
42. Battle Squadron
43. Pulstar
44. Mad Planets
45. Encounter
46. Einhander
47. Matrix
48. Gyruss
49. 1942
50. Armalyte

Some inconsistencies I'd name right off the bat are:
07. Galaxian
18. Galaga (I know of no person who'd rather play Galaxian over Galaga)

and

09. Ikaruga
29. Radiant Silvergun (One or the other. Not both.)

not to mention the fact that they bothered to bend the shooter definition to include FPSs, but only did so to mention Doom and not even consider any other major (and I'd think, easy-to-argue as better) FPS that have come out since then.

I can kind of understand doom, and yet, not.

Did the makers of Doom ever say the game evolved out of old school shooters? If then, ok, maybe it should go on the list.

But everything past doom was in its own world.

Stuff like this can be hard to pin down. Like is Black Sabbath a metal band or a rock band?

What is this website wayoftherodent? I have never heard of it before; this leads me to believe this list is more pointless than any list IGN or Gamespot has ever made.

As Diffx would say, it's nothing but masterbation.

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Originally Posted by IronPlant

Did the makers of Doom ever say the game evolved out of old school shooters? If then, ok, maybe it should go on the list.

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Nah, they never said that. The game's simple architecture, tedious key-card hunts (everyone forgets about those anyway) and huge waves of enemies were because of technical limitations than a desire to evoke Robotron or R-Type. There's really no reason to put that game on this list.

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Originally Posted by IronPlant

Did the makers of Doom ever say the game evolved out of old school shooters? If then, ok, maybe it should go on the list.

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No, Doom has a traceable lineage going back to old 2D corridor maze games.

John Carmack made a game called "The Catacomb" for a monthly software serial called "Big Blue Disk" published by softdisk. I'm sure there were similar games before it, but that was the beginning. It was a basic corridor maze thing with a wizard and lots of demons to blast. Later he and the boys at id made "Catacomb 3-D" for Softdisk, their first FPS. They later revamped the engine, moved up to 256 color, added digital sound effects, and used it to make Wolfenstein 3D. You know the rest.

I beleive Wolfenstein was also inspired by an old Apple II game that was similar to Catacomb.

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Originally Posted by dog$

(One or the other. Not both.)

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Why? They don't play alike.

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not to mention the fact that they bothered to bend the shooter definition to include FPSs, but only did so to mention Doom and not even consider any other major (and I'd think, easy-to-argue as better) FPS that have come out since then.

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I think that's more because Doom was straight shooting action through-and-through while later FPS' have been a constant try to one-up each other through attempts at realism or gimmicks. I certainly wouldn't include it but if forced to I would definately say Doom is more shooter than any other FPS I can think of. Well, maybe Serious Sam as it can be very Robotronesque at times.

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Originally Posted by dog$

05. Rez

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If you treat this as a comedic piece, I feel a little better about it.

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

Why? They don't play alike.

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Just on the same basis that most other people operate with these Top 50 lists, in that they don't want all iterations of some series individually present on the list to monopolize positions.

RS is still a boring lump of shit but continues to stand immune to most criticism, so I'm really not surprised to see it mentioned.

Ikaruga actually has a ship that moves with some semblance of speed, graphics that don't feature 100% grain, and (to me) has better stage layout, music, and overall environment.

So if I were compiling the list I'd definitely endeavor to choose only one title from among Ika, RS, and Bangai-O as opposed to ranking all three, since there are clearly 100's of other shooters which could/should have been mentioned instead.

diffusionX-
If you come back I'd like to see where you'd reposition Einhänder in this list; I was surprised to see you mention the game in a positive light so I'm curious to see how much you'd favor it compared to other titles in the list.

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Originally Posted by Grave

If you treat this as a comedic piece, I feel a little better about it.

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:lol: Seriously. I thought that'd be one example which'd make most people get up-in-arms.

What the HELL is Doom doing in this list? :mad: Metal Slug, Encounter, Commando, Rez, After Burner, Star Wars, and Missile Command shouldn't be on it either. Galaga and Galaxian don't belong here when we have Galaga '88 with its kickass Triple Ship and the Dimension Warp (kind of like an early rank system where you have total control of difficulty- just take 2 blue capsules and you're in a higher dimension with more points and risk).

Return of the Jedi would've been better than Star Wars for the list- RotJ is basically a Viewpoint type game save for its analog control.

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Originally Posted by dog$

Just on the same basis that most other people operate with these Top 50 lists, in that they don't want all iterations of some series individually present on the list to monopolize positions.

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In many cases I'd agree but the only relevance they really share is that they both have a talking crystal. I mean, I'd put ESP RaDe on there instead of RS but it's not like listing Warcraft II and Warcraft III on an RTS list, it's more like Warcraft II and Starcraft. I see no reason to exclude games just because it's the same genre by the same company.

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Ikaruga actually has a ship that moves with some semblance of speed, graphics that don't feature 100% grain, and (to me) has better stage layout, music, and overall environment.

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I agree. (My bringing that up had nothing to do with whether or not I thought they should be on the list in the first place, in case it seemed like I did.)