Do you remember any of your favorite childhood dreams? We do. At least, if you’re anything like us, you dreamed about being a badass fighter pilot. How cool would it be to rocket past enemy lines, blasting baddies left and right with machine turrets to liberate entire planets? Well, the NES gave this experience to a whole generation of gamers through some of the most nostalgic shmups ever made. Today, we’re going to look at 10 NES shoot em up games that every retro gamer needs to try. Some of these are fantastic arcade ports, like Xevious, but many of them are NES originals. Now, load up, take aim, and reminisce about theses excellent NES shooters. 1. Gun Nac Gun Nac is one of the wackiest and most over-the-top shooters you will ever play. The enemies in this game are, to say the least, unusual. You’ll battle killer rabbits, trees, sentient...

When most people think of the TurboGrafx-16 system—wait, let’s rephrase that. Pretty much no one thinks about the TurboGrafx-16 system, ever. After all, it’s just another console that lost the console wars because it wasn’t good enough, right? Wrong! Sadly, this wonderful console had a lot to offer before it bit the dust. And much of this content was exclusive to the system. Particularly, there are a lot of amazing TurboGrafx shmups that retro game enthusiasts are missing out on. Besides exclusive games, the system offers several arcade ports that are often better than the original. Read on to learn more about the best TurboGrafx shmups ever made. 1. R-Type R-Type is one of the most famous arcade shmups, and one of the earliest to be ported onto home game consoles. Notably, the NES port was an enormous success and is still popular among retro gamers today. Technically speaking, though, the...

We were going to start this article with a question. But we already know the answer. No, you’re not interested in getting into the retro shoot ’em up games. We get it. It’s a difficult genre for the uninitiated to break into. For one thing, we mean that literally. Shoot ‘em up games, or “shmups” tend to be very challenging. Also, the 80s and 90s spawned thousands of these games every year. If you’re trying to get into these games now, where do you start? So glad you asked. You start right here, of course. Below are the best SNES shmups that money can buy—or at least some of them. There are several notable mentions that we’ll save for a follow-up article. In any case, you must try these 10 SNES shoot ‘em ups for yourself. 10. Super R-Type Obviously, we couldn’t list the best SNES shmups without mentioning at least...

Shmup. Some gamers get a natural high just from saying the word, while others can’t forget about the genre fast enough. Despite this, one thing’s for certain: shmup’s legacy will endure as long as there are video games to be played.    Why? Because this shooter genre is the one that started it all. Think back to the early days of arcade games and, more often than not, the titles you conjure up are shmup titles. There were no fighter jets blasting aliens before shmup, and they’ll never be done quite the same way again. But what really helped the shmup genre to gain a foothold in the gaming world is that the  titles subtly evolved over the years, advancing little by little from arcade machines to consoles to next-gen consoles. So in the spirit of celebrating this throwback, Here are great shmups that defined the shmup genre. Space Invaders  There’s some...

Nintendo NES Gun Nac: “Gun Nac”, which seems like a hybrid of Blazing Lazers for the turbografx 16. If you’re into old school top scrolling shooter’s this game is for you. Gun Nac is packed full of enemy sizzling weapons; to blast away anything that steps in your way. The Story: The idea of gun nac is much like that of gradius or other shooters of the same shmup genre. You go level by level and destroy anything that approaches you. There are a total of 7 levels to defeat, and a boss to defeat at the end of each level. The fun thing about the game is it has animals trying to kill you. You have crazed rabbits throwing huge carrots at you, not to mention a rabbit is an end boss. So you have that strange element of crazed animals, but the game really isn’t about that. The Gameplay: Your...