30 Essential Atari 8bit Vertical Flying SHMUPS for your Atari 400 Mini

[@MisterSplendy]

Ah some memories stirred here. 👍🏻

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

Great and complete round up ! This time I am unable to suggest additional noticeable games for this specific type of shoot'em ups. I will be back later with some fun facts! Excellent video(btw there is a small issue with the last squadron splash screen appearing in two games if you haven't spotted it....nothing serious though).

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Yeah. It was late and I transposed title screens. Thanks for finding it. I'll keep it in as an undocumented feature =)

[@lotekstyle]

Great. I am always surprised how many ancient titles you are diggin' up that I've never heard of before.

[@steveafulton]

OMG Blackhawk looks awesome!

[@luispieri640]

Amazing video! still laughing "...this video much longer than most people's attenton span... and yes I look at the stats..." epic...

[@GustafStechmann]

wow lots of hidden gems here

[@merman1974]

Great video. Dark Abyss reminds me of a C64 game called Task III - it's a vertical scroller where you can go up and down, earning extra weapons. And Black Hawk has strong echoes of the diagonally scrolling Blue Max. I'm a huge fan of Pastfinder, it's got such a clever background generation system.

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Pastfinder really is a hidden GEM

[@socrates0603]

Thanks for another excellent roundup! With the exception of three or four games, these are all new to me.

[@BURRITO44]

Awesome video

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

After checking my folder with my shooters I found some titles maybe... for a future video. 1.Space Hawk is a 1987 clone of Warhawk by micro value. Since you can chance the direction of the scrolling its more of a vertical iridium 2. Speed Zone is a 1989 vertical shooter.....a bit weird I must say since phone booths appear in space. 3.Hawkquest is a 1989 RED RAT SOFTWARE quality shooter (two DS disks!) The following vertical shooters are two really good demos that I enjoy playing mainly for their modern characteristics . The first is called "Ripper" (multicolor sprites , Atari blast like side scrolling) and the second "Abyssus" (again, well designed multicolor sprites and a big boss at the end). Both are really good tech demos on what the small Atari can do. Now if I am not missing a version there are six different versions of river raid and they are fun to play. River raid 2k11 (you are a rawing up a river and you refuel passing over beers) River raid 2600 River Raid Bold with splash screen music River Raid Cold Winter River Raid on Mars and the original version that you showed here. An interesting thing is that the shooter "Dark Abyss" was also released for the C64 (a bit more polished)

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Hawk Quest needs an entire video all by itself. There is a Saga about its release that plays out in page 6 magazine that demands exploration

[@tonybarnes2920]

It's funny you mentioned Desert Strike with regards to Blackhawk. I don't think I've ever seen that game before, but what did influence me was; Choplifter, Zaxxon and Fort Apocalypse.

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

All good reference points

[@meecob]

I did just install Atari 8 bit systems to my Launchbox library. I already have the entire Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Jaguar and Lynx roms.

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Launchbox and the "Import Folder" option are both great, aren't they!

[@meecob]

@@IntoTheVerticalBlank Indeed they are. I still like the learning curve though. Each emulator is different and can be fun configuring or a complete headache.

[@paulwestphal7336]

There were a few I did not know about. I'll try some of these with a trackball

[@Jolly-Green-Steve]

These graphics make my t-shirt look next-gen.

[@nekononiaow]

Interesting, I did not expect that many shmups on the machine. However I do wonder about the playability of many of them given the quite frantic pace of the enemies, limited fire rates and cramped screen space. AtariBlast looks like a technical achievement but enemy waves seem too intense and fast and I must admit to being partial against the enormous amount of animated elements which look like they cannot but reduce the readability of the play area. Would you be willing to rank those by playability/fun factor? Thanks for the video!

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Atari Blast is probably the most fun because you can't run into the background. Many of the others make that mistake and they are far too difficult.

[@igorperuchi2114]

I don't want to be picky, but I missed Hawkquest from this otherwise great list.

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

I'm doing a video on the Saga of Hawk Quest abd how it finally got published. But yes, I stupidly left it off this list.

[@meecob]

Your right about the attention span bit. Considering I'm here and I'm a C64 nut.

[@Mrshoujo]

ES pial. The stress is on the 1st syllable. This is actually a coin op conversion. Are you pronouncing TAITO?

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Thanks, Yes. I mangle words all the time. I have an ST TAITO video where I pronounce it correctly, but for some reason f@ck it up all the time on the 8bits

[@michaelhband]

👍👍👍❤❤❤/|\

[@82fdny97]

Last Squadron 2020 is bad Skyshark