Best Shoot Em Up

Contra: Shattered Soldier is a two-player action game developed by Team Kijirushi as part of the Contra series. It returned to the series’ traditional side-scrolling gameplay style, following its rele...

Space Harrier is a 1985 Sega arcade rail shooter where players control a jet-propelled character through fantastical environments. Initially designed as a military flight simulation, technical limitat...

Star Fox 64 3D is a 3D rail shooter developed by Nintendo EAD and Q-Games, reintroducing players to the Star Fox 64 gameplay experience. The title serves as a remake of the original 1997 game for the...

River Raid was a 1982 shoot 'em up for the Atari 2600 created by Carol Shaw. Players controlled a fighter jet on a mission to destroy targets like tankers and bridges within the River of No Return. Th...

Guerrilla War is an arcade-developed action game from SNK released in 1987. The title was subsequently adapted into versions for multiple home computer systems including the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64,...

Raiden is a 1990 arcade shooter set in 2090 where an alien invasion by the Crystals threatens Earth. Players control two Fighting Thunder aircraft as Vanquish Crystal Defense pilots tasked with combat...

Syndicate, developed by Bullfrog Productions in 1993, is an isometric strategy game where players command a corporate entity seeking worldwide influence. The title initially launched on MS-DOS and Ami...

Contra: Hard Corps is a 1994 run and gun title created by Konami for the Sega Genesis. It marked the initial Contra release on a Sega console. The game was originally titled Contra: The Hard Corps in...

Contra Force is a 1992 run-and-gun game for the Nintendo Entertainment System developed by Konami. It diverges from previous Contra titles by featuring human terrorists as antagonists and establishing...

Ikari Warriors, released in 1986 by SNK and Tradewest, is an arcade run and gun game utilizing rotary joysticks for control. It featured a two-player cooperative mode, drawing upon the design of the e...

Turrican is a run and gun game created by Factor 5 and published by Rainbow Arts. Developed by Manfred Trenz, it debuted on the Commodore 64 before being ported to multiple systems. A follow-up title,...

Salamander is a 1986 arcade scrolling shooter developed by Konami, originating from the Gradius series. It featured cooperative two-player gameplay and varied scrolling stages, influencing subsequent...

The House of the Dead is a 1997 arcade shooter where players control agents Rogan and “G” against undead experiments. Developed by Sega AM1 for the Sega Model 2 hardware, the game features a horror-in...

Jackal is an arcade game developed by Konami in 1986. Players control a heavily armed jeep, tasked with rescuing captured soldiers from occupied areas. Gameplay involves maneuvering the vehicle throug...

After Burner is a 1987 arcade rail shooter featuring an F-14 Tomcat fighter jet. Players navigate 18 stages by destroying enemies using machine guns and heat-seeking missiles within a third-person per...

Star Fox Zero is a 2016 rail shooter for the Wii U developed by Nintendo and PlatinumGames. It revisits elements of the Star Fox 64 storyline and features a tower defense component included as a separ...

Robotron: 2084 was an arcade twin-stick shooter released by Williams Electronics in 1982. Set in the dystopian future of 2084, players combat waves of robotic enemies attempting to eliminate human sur...

This run and gun video game, developed by Konami, was released for arcades in 1991. The gameplay takes place in the American Old West, featuring players controlling bounty hunters pursuing criminals f...

The House of the Dead 2 is a 1998 arcade light gun shooter sequel to the original *House of the Dead*. It features several AMS agents investigating a zombie outbreak in Italy, approximately one year a...

Virtua Cop is an arcade-based light gun shooter released by Sega in 1994. It was initially designed for the Sega Model 2 system and later adapted for the Sega Saturn and Windows platforms. The Saturn...

Ikaruga is a bullet hell arcade game created by Treasure, building upon Radiant Silvergun’s mechanics. Players control Shinra piloting an Ikaruga fighter that switches between black and white polarity...

Killer7 is an action-adventure game released in 2005 by Grasshopper Manufacture and Capcom. Developed under the direction of Goichi Suda and with production oversight from Hiroyuki Kobayashi, it was o...

Broforce is a 2015 side-scrolling action game created by Free Lives and released by Devolver Digital. It features players controlling “bros” inspired by action movie characters who navigate destructib...

Gradius, released in 1985 by Konami, is a horizontally scrolling arcade shooter centered around piloting the Vic Viper spacecraft. Players utilize a power-up system fueled by collected capsules to com...

Descent was a 1995 first-person shooter developed for multiple platforms including MS-DOS and PlayStation. The game utilized true-3D graphics and popularized six degrees of freedom gameplay, placing p...

Far Cry Instincts is a 2005 first-person shooter developed for Xbox, based on the original Windows version. The console port features a more linear structure due to processing limitations, incorporati...

Zero Wing is a 1989 arcade shooter developed by Toaplan. Players control the ZIG fighter as Trent, attempting to defeat the CATS alien pirates. The title marks Toaplan's eighth shoot ‘em up release an...

Azur Lane is a mobile shoot 'em up game developed by Shanghai Manjuu and Xiamen Yongshi. The title features side-scrolling combat with female warships inspired by World War II vessels. Gameplay includ...

Defender is a horizontally scrolling shooter developed by Williams Electronics in 1981. The game tasks players with defending astronauts against waves of aliens on an unnamed planet, inspired by Space...