Soccer (NES / Famicom)

I remember looking at some of those early NES games where the art on the cartridge was just some pixels from the game itself.  Very simple, and it came far before pixel art ever became popular.  It was pretty neat, and Soccer was one of those simple games.  And boy was it simple.  Looking at it now, players moved painfully slow, it was a miracle to pass or shoot the ball, and actually scoring took some serious work.

Axelay (SNES / Super Famicom)

This is probably one of my favorite of the lesser known shoot 'em ups to come out on the SNES.  For it's time, Axelay had some amazing graphics as it showed off what the console could do.  Bosses in particularly looked amazing.  Part vertical, part horizontal shooter, players could cycle between three weapon types and launch missiles at enemies.  All in all it was a very good looking, fun shmup well worth trying out.

Vice - Project Doom (NES / Famicom)

While Bayou Billy may get the most attention for combining a bunch of different genres in a single game on the NES, there were other titles that also did this.  One of my favorite of the bunch was Vice: Project Doom where you played some mysterious guy fighting a mysterious enemy.  The game had driving, shooting, and side-scrolling action.  Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Konami.

Extra Innings (SNES / Super Famicom)

One of the things I miss most about 8 and 16-bit baseball games were how cute so many of them were.  Nowadays it's all serious business with major leaguers everywhere.  Gone are the days of the colorful uniforms, cartoony players, and cheerful background music. Extra Innings is one of those games that regularly reminds me of those times, and how much I miss them.  Interestingly, it's also a game from Sony before they came out with the PlayStation, and were making games for other systems.

Afterburner II (Genesis / Mega Drive)

The Afterburner games were some of the earliest examples that I remember of an arcade game that seemed more like an amusement part ride.  The units for them could sometimes be gigantic with their cockpit-like set up.  Granted the home experience wasn't quite as bombastic, but Afterburner II on the Genesis was pretty darn fun.  Looking back it seems strange that your machine guns were constantly firing, and players were pretty much just dodging enemy missiles while shooting their own.  I guess gamers at the time were to busy thinking, "I'm flying a jet plane!" to think about some of the more nonsensical aspects of the game.

Pineapple Smash Crew (PC)

I'm always up for a game with randomly generated dungeons.  Most of the titles that I play that are like this tend to be fantasy RPG in nature.  However, one exception to this that I came across not so long ago was Pineapple Smash Crew, which is a fast-paced action shooter featuring randomly generated levels.  There are still RPG elements to be had, as your squad can level up over time, though they tend to die and get replaced quite often.  The game also seems to be mildly obsessed with giving you hand grenades to play with.

G. Darius (PlayStation)

Okay, so today we'll be transitioning from a shoot 'em up featuring dragons to a shoot 'em up featuring fish.  The Darius series has always been one of the core franchises in the world of shmups in no small part because of all the fish in it, but there are also some other neat elements to them, not the least of which is the branching paths players can take after each level.  It just adds so much replay value to the game, and G. Darius is no exception to this.  It's also got some nice polygonal visuals, a decent soundtrack, and you can take control of enemy ships and use their weapons as your own.  Good times. =)