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Shmups shmups, everywhere a shmup. **** productivity, shootin them up. Shoot this, don't shoot that,
when you play a shmuuuuuup. Who doesn't love playing arcade classics like Space Invaders,
Galaxian, or Xevious? The joy of video gaming owes much to the development of such games,
and when Nintendo decided to participate in the arcade shooting craze sweeping the world,
who could doubt that they would put out a good product. From the depths of Nintendo
R&D 1 and gaming guru Gunpei Yokoi comes Solar Striker for the Game Boy, the handheld console
that was taking America by storm in 1990. A big thanks from the underwater base to Quentin
in Kansas for this fabulous donation. In the only scrolling shooter published by Nintendo,
you control the Solar Striker, a ship much like that of Galaga or Xevious, in that you
can collect shooting upgrades for it, and there's only two of them. Important to note
in this shoot-em-up is the movements of your foes, all of whom collapse as soon as bullet
hits metal. Their strength is in numbers, however, and whether they move side to side,
in a zig-zag, or simply straight down will affect whether you live to see the next stage
or get blown to smithereens. One box slowly scrolls through center. Blow it open and receive
a shooting upgrade, which will add one bullet at a time up to five. Each boss has their
own method of making your life a living hell. It took me about a half hour just to get through
the first one, a megaship that blasts away at you in a three bullet pattern while moving
horizontally. Getting a rhythm of dodge and shoot going, no matter how strong your fire
rate, is critical for victory. Solar Striker is definitely one of the more difficult old
school shooters, chock full of enemies to defeat and high scores to collect. This is
the joy of shooters, though. The fact that a game's format can be so simple and yet so
precarious is the reason why the good ones are so addictive, and Solar Striker is one
of them.