Western Shareware Shooters

Posted by oddbob on May 18, 2007 · Lovingly Filed Under Articles 
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Well, there’s a title not to be read whilst drunk if ever there was one.

Ok, having once again found myself unable to resist the urge to call Jets N Guns an utter barrage of effluence across two forums after the game being slung out on Game Giveaway of the Day (normal service resumed at the time of writing, with the fantastic Balloon Park being todays giveaway - did I say fantastic? I meant to write “same old shit, different day”) its kinda got me thinking…

Where are they? And I’m not asking this in a come whore your game to me kind of way, because really - if you’re that desperate to get your product splashed across the internet that you’ll leave a “come try my game” comment in my blog then in all likelihood, its probably not the game I’m looking for and I’ll find myself with the irresistable urge to pick at every single fault in it, because I’m a bit of a cunt like that. So, seriously… where are they?

As far as I can see, there’s actually very few even worth giving a second glance at. Jets N Guns, is to all intents and purposes, one of the most horrid games I’ve ever set eyes upon. More so because it looks shiny and it sounds fantastic. Its just so generic, poorly balanced and soulless that I can’t bring myself to even mention it without getting a bout of tourettes. So what else is there? There’s Charlies Bullet Candy which whilst not perfect, its stupidly fun enough that any flaws can be easily overlooked, there’s the old faithfuls of PomPom, which are getting a bit long in the tooth now, there’s Fren-Ze which is wonderful beyond words, Puppygames have a couple of nice games… and… what else? Yup, its at this point I get stuck. I like to pretend that Alawar doesn’t exist because my life is happier that way, I’ve little to no interest in Bugatron et al, and a million and one Asteroids clones on portals certainly do little for me, the Crimsonland style got old real fast - more so with the increasing edge towards RPG-esque upgrades.

I’m looking for purity here, the stuff you can get in droves from the Eastern market with a bit of effort. Why, when there’s so many shooter fans out there are there so few games produced that I think “yeah, I’ll sling some cash your way”. I’m not after top notch production values, a soundtrack by either a cult nerd band or graphics by someone who used to work at Lucasarts (is there any artists out there offering services who didn’t at some point?) - just that pleasurable zone experience.

The freeware market though, its got that thang in droves, sure - some are flawed, some miss the edge they could have had, but when there’s stuff like Clean Asia coming out, some of the stuff that comes out of Shmup Dev is promising too, I’ve got enough to keep me going for a long time - but it still doesn’t explain to me why there isn’t a decent amount of well done games that I can throw my money at.

Instead, am I doomed to eternally download these attractive looking games to find something I feel guilty about wasting the download time on, never mind even consider paying for the bastards? Or… is there some hope for shooters in the shareware arena?

I don’t have the answer, and I guess thats why I’m writing this now…

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