WHAT TO PLAY
Shooters
608 games in the catalog
A shooter is the most direct game idea there is: something approaches, you aim, and you fire before it reaches you. The groundwork was laid in 1962, when students at MIT wrote Spacewar!, and sixteen years later Taito's Space Invaders spread to arcades everywhere.
Today the name covers several quite different things: shmups, where a ship weaves between bullets; run-and-gun games with a hero on foot; light gun games with a plastic pistol; third-person shooters built around cover; and team-based multiplayer. What they share is a rule you can learn in five seconds: the screen shows who the enemy is, and the controller tells you what to do about it.
The genre lasted mainly because every new piece of technology could be shown off on it fastest, whether vector graphics, sprites, polygons or VR headsets. The principle stayed the same; what changed was how many things the player has to handle at once.
Today (2015 onwards)
87 games in the catalogThe modern shooter has split in several directions. Team games like Rainbow Six Siege, with destructible walls, Overwatch, with heroes who have their own abilities, and Valorant are won through roles and map knowledge as much as aim. Loot and progression borrowed from role-playing games reached The Division 2 and Warframe. VR put shooting in the player's hands, with manual reloading in Onward and Contractors. And old ideas return in new forms: Cuphead continues the run-and-gun tradition with hand-drawn animation, and Metal: Hellsinger ties shooting to rhythm.
PC Borderlands 4
The new planet Kairos under the rule of the Timekeeper brings faster, more acrobatic movement.
PC Contra: Operation Galuga
A modern return to the merciless run-and-gun style that Konami established back in 1987.
PS5 Helldivers 2
Cooperative carnage for four, where you call in stratagems directly under enemy fire.
PS5 Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
Looter shooter from the creators of the Arkham trilogy; each character has their own movement style.
PS5 Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
A Space Marine against an endless wave of Tyranids; playable solo or with two others.
Quest Arizona Sunshine 2
A zombie VR shooter set in a flooded wasteland; water serves as both cover and a trap for enemies.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
The mech series from FromSoftware returns after ten years; you build your mech from dozens of parts.
PS4 Atomic Heart
Stejný sovětský utopický svět, ale poloviční snímkování a méně živé prostředí kolem vás.
Series Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
Makarov returns with a nuclear threat; more open missions let you choose your approach.
PC Counter-Strike 2
The move to Source 2 brought smoke grenades that react to the environment and new lighting.
PSVR2 Firewall Ultra
The sequel to Firewall Zero Hour; tactical 4v4 shootouts with a single life per round.
Series Redfall
A vampire invasion in Massachusetts; a four-player co-op shooter from Arkane.
The HD generation (2005–2014)
107 games in the catalogWith higher resolutions and the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the weight shifted to polished, story-driven action and online play. Epic's Gears of War (2006) made taking cover and leaning out the core of the controls, and the third-person shooter became a genre in its own right. Online multiplayer with persistent progression, as Call of Duty 4 delivered it, showed that a shooter could keep people playing for months. Digital stores such as Xbox Live Arcade brought back small arcade games: Geometry Wars, and HD versions of Ikaruga and Rez. The Wii pointer put the pistol back in the player's hand, as in The Darkside Chronicles.
PC Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
A looter shooter from the Borderlands series focused on hordes of procedurally generated guns and loot.
X360 Destiny
Destiny na Xboxu 360: stejný den vydání, slabší hardware a exkluzivní obsah navíc.
3DS Mighty Gunvolt
An 8-bit-styled run-and-gun spin-off from the Gunvolt universe with a choice of characters.
Vita TxK
A hypnotic shooter from Jeff Minter; a ship shoots down enemies crawling out of a tube.
Vita Velocity 2X
A hybrid of a vertical shooter and a platformer with a teleporting ship; it excels at both.
PC Arma 3
A military simulation focused on realism; ballistics, fatigue, and radio chatter instead of action.
X360 Gears of War: Judgment
A prequel starring Baird and Cole, told as testimonies at a military tribunal.
3DS Nano Assault EX
Twin-stick shmup by Shin'en Multimedia; spherical arenas inside giant organisms.
Wii U Nano Assault Neo
A visually stunning twin-stick shmup in a microscopic world of cells from studio Shin'en Multimedia.
PS4 Resogun
Voxelový ohňostroj, který ukázal sílu PS4 hned při jejím startu.
3DS Steel Diver: Sub Wars
Free-to-play Steel Diver sequel focused on online submarine battles instead of a campaign.
PC The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
A tactical third-person shooter where squad commands matter more than aiming.
The arrival of 3D (1995–2004)
161 games in the catalogPolygons changed what could be shot and from where. Arcade light gun games like Virtua Cop and Time Crisis brought the pistol into full 3D, the latter with a foot pedal for ducking behind cover. At home, consoles finally played first-person shooters properly: the analogue stick on the Nintendo 64 made aiming without a mouse workable, and GoldenEye 007 proved it. Two-dimensional shooters did not disappear. SNK's Metal Slug took hand-drawn sprites a long way, and Cave, starting with DonPachi, developed the bullet hell, where the player threads through dense patterns of shots.
PC Counter-Strike: Source
The transformation of a Half-Life mod into a full-fledged game; the new engine brought more realistic physics.
Xbox Full Spectrum Warrior
It grew out of a training simulator for the US Army; you command infantry squads, not individual soldiers.
MAME Ghost Squad
Tři roky před Wii tu na hráče mířila skutečná pistole připevněná k automatu.
PS2 Gradius V
The return of the legendary space shooter, made by Treasure, masters of the shoot 'em up.
WS Judgement Silversword: Rebirth Edition
The most unlikely gem of the WonderSwan library; it grew out of the WonderWitch homebrew kit.
GBA Metal Slug Advance
An iconic run-and-gun from SNK; Metal Slug tanks and vehicles can be commandeered at any time.
MAME Mushihimesama
One of Cave's most beautiful bullet-hell games — you fly on a beetle through swarms of projectiles.
PS2 Neo Contra
A return to the top-down view and anime stylization; the new hero Jaguar in over-the-top battles.
Vectrex Protector
A homebrew tribute to Defender, where abducted people turn into a much more aggressive form of enemy.
Xbox Red Dead Revolver
A western shooter that laid the foundations for the later Red Dead Redemption series.
GBA Serious Sam Advance
The PC series' frantic pace translated into a top-down view; waves of enemies from every side.
Xbox Star Wars: Battlefront
Famous Star Wars battles from the perspective of an ordinary soldier, on large maps across four factions.
8- and 16-bit (1986–1994)
165 games in the catalogHome computers and consoles brought scrolling and sprites that even cheap hardware could handle, and shooters took full advantage. After Konami's Gradius introduced picking your upgrades from a power-up bar, Irem's R-Type added a chargeable shot and a detachable Force pod, and built its levels around memorising attack patterns. On the PC Engine and Mega Drive the shmup became a staple of home consoles. Run-and-gun grew alongside it: Contra with two-player co-op, Turrican with large levels you could explore. Treasure's Gunstar Heroes then showed how fast and fluid action could get on 16 bits.
Neo Geo Aero Fighters 2
A quirky vertical shmup with a colorful cast of pilots; released in Japan as Sonic Wings 2.
CD32 Banshee
A steampunk alternate-history war; a vertical shmup starring a biplane from Core Design.
MD Contra: Hard Corps
Brutal run & gun with branching; for hardcore players.
Dactyl Nightmare 2
A sequel to the famous arena above the chasm; more varied environments and the same dreaded pterodactyl.
MAME Darius Gaiden
Vesmírná střílečka s trojicí obrazovek a bossy přes celé zorné pole herny.
MD Earthworm Jim 1 & 2
Cartoon humor and insane design; a 90s icon.
VFX1 Heretic
A fantasy shooter on the Doom engine; an elf fights with magic against D'Sparil and can even fly.
MCD Keio Flying Squadron
A cute, deliberately over-the-top Japanese shooter with a girl riding on the back of a flying dragon.
MCD Lethal Enforcers
An arcade light-gun shooter about a police officer; also playable with a real toy pistol.
MD Mega Turrican
The peak of the Turrican series on 16 bits; the energy whip and fluid movement turn the action into a dance.
3DO Novastorm
An on-rails space shooter built on the then-new technique of video played back from disc.
MAME Point Blank
Namco turned the light gun into a wacky, colorful party full of funny minigames.
The beginnings (until 1985)
64 games in the catalogThe earliest shooters fit on a single screen and played from a fixed position. In Space Invaders and Galaxian the player slides along the bottom edge and fires upward while the enemy descends; Galaxian added colour sprites and attackers that peel off from the formation to dive at you. Vector cabinets such as Tempest and Star Castle offered a different kind of screen, Williams' Robotron: 2084 split movement and fire across two joysticks, and Defender and Scramble began to scroll. Capcom's Commando in 1985 was one of the first big run-and-gun games: a soldier on foot, with the landscape scrolling upward as he advances.
A800 Commando
Arcade run & gun ports; the arcade classic brought home.
MAME Gradius
The Vic Viper and its faithful helpers; a revolutionary upgrade system that defined the genre for years.
A800 Rescue on Fractalus!
Lucasfilm Games; fractal 3D, sci-fi for its era.
MAME Space Harrier
Yu Suzuki's surreal world of flying mammoths and dragons; an arcade spectacle of the 1980s.
SG Star Force
An iconic vertical shooter that defined the pure arcade shmup on the SG-1000.
A800 The Eidolon
A fractal-rendered cave world of dragons and magic in first person. Action and exploration.
MAME The Empire Strikes Back (1985, Atari)
Atari's vector action transported to icy Hoth — a sequel to the Star Wars classic.
MAME Two Tigers
A cooperative aerial shooter for two players at one machine – a rarity for its time.
MAME 1942
The vertical war shooter that launched Capcom on its path among gaming giants.
MAME Bank Panic
Split-second distinguishing of customers from robbers behind doors; a reflex-testing adrenaline rush from Sega.
MAME D-Day
War action inspired by the invasion of Normandy; an advance along the coast under fire from several directions.
NES Duck Hunt
An icon of the NES era, played with the Zapper light gun aimed straight at the TV.