Shmup of the Month Club 2012

[dunpeal2064]

Oh, I am not by any means getting defensive over the way we selected games. I just do not think the provided alternatives would work.

Of course, it will be impossible to pick a game everyone will like. Shmups tend to be a love it or hate it thing.

I just don't see how picking by publishers or mass vote would solve the issues at hand? Especially considering a lot of shmups were published by different companies in different regions, and ports were usually handled by different companies as well.

If we just randomly vote for the hundreds of games that we may want to play, then we'll get hundreds of single votes for games, tons of games getting 3 or 4 votes, and if a few of us felt like it, we could vote in something that very few people would like, just because we want to play it.

I think this is just constructive criticism in the other direction

As far as active voters goes... well, thats shmups for you. Its much easier to buy a shmup, vote for a shmup, and talk about playing a shmup than it is to actually play it. These games are brutal, and there will always be folks that don'
t have the time/patience or enjoy the game enough to push through with it.

[dunpeal2064]

May as well give my opinion on these points, since thats the whole point of SotM!

With that - this game, to me, is unimaginative and straight up boring. It embraces solely enemy location memorization. Weapons / powerups / epic bosses / intricate bullet-patterns / fantastic sprites / creative enemies / rank = all lacking. Factor in bonus stages that in some regards are pure luck (the enemy going off-screen is just straight up lame).

Weapons/Power ups: Almost overly simple, agreed. I think it works well in this game, once you realize that scraping the sides of your wide ass shot is the main premise to this game.

Intricite bullet patterns:.... its a 1991 shooter! Its older than Raiden II, not really a fair complaint imo

Fantastic sprites: Now this one I must disagree with. The smaller enemies are pretty uninspired, but I think some of the sprites look great, and the backgrounds and music in this game are fantastic! It really creates a great atmosphere for this artsy shmup.

Creative enemies: I actually think this game has a great variety of enemies compared to other shooters of its time. I mean, in Truxton, you just sweep and avoid snipes. This game actually has enemies attacking you in different ways.

Epic Bosses: Ok... stage 1 boss is lame. Stage 2 is a bit better, still too easy though... but you really have to see the stage 3 boss. Its hilarious, epic, and confusing all in one. Its really a great boss fight imo

Rank: Again, its 1991! This game does indeed have Rank though, purely based on survival time. If you make it to stage 3 without a miss, the bullets are definitely faster.

I'm not denying that this game is straight up memo... but I think its a good kind of memo. The stages are short, and don't repeat the same enemy patterns too often, so once you have a section down, you have it down.

Not my favorite (or even tenth favorite), but I think this game is pretty neat, and its making me want to check out more "memo-based" shooters.

[Tyranix95]

... Of course, it will be impossible to pick a game everyone will like. Shmups tend to be a love it or hate it thing.

I just don't see how picking by publishers or mass vote would solve the issues at hand? Especially considering a lot of shmups were published by different companies in different regions, and ports were usually handled by different companies as well.

If we just randomly vote for the hundreds of games that we may want to play, then we'll get hundreds of single votes for games, tons of games getting 3 or 4 votes, and if a few of us felt like it, we could vote in something that very few people would like, just because we want to play it.

I think this is just constructive criticism in the other direction

....

Some shmups games were developed in-house and other were developed "out-house" (out sourced). For example, just look at DIMAHOO. (http://www.retrocpu.com/mame/roms/d/dimahoo_euro_000121) In anyevent, Publisher just means the company that got to distrubute the board for use in thier cab. Either way, it's easy to tell, just look at the board, manual, marquee, or posters for the company logo. Publishers love to stamp their name all over the place.

-----------------------------

Popular vote is easy: For each month, everyone nominates two boards that they want to play--a first pick and second pick. After the everyone has nominated the two games that they want to play for each month, then the voting begins.

Round 1: Everone pics ONE board, from the list, that they want to play during each month. Then, boards with no picks (votes) are removed from the list.

Round 2: Everone pics one board, from the list, that they want to play during each month. For each month, the boards with most picks (votes) remain on the list, and the boards with the least picks (votes) are removed from the list. Let your eye find the cut-off point.

(If the cut-off piont is hard to spot, then hold a quick tie-breading-vote and pick which game(s) will NOT stay on the list.)

Round 3: Everone pics one board, from the list, that they want to play during each month. The board with most picks (votes) remains on the list as the shmup of the month.

(Again, if there is a tie, during Round 3, hold a quick tie-breading-vote and pick which game(s) will NOT be the shmup of the month.)

List of shmups. http://www.shmups.com/xenocidefiles/arcade.html

[dunpeal2064]

I don't see how going by publisher is BETTER than going by developer. It would just widen the amount of games from some devs (like capcom, who developed and published their own games, while publishing others), while alienating others (Are we going to have a Fabtek month, because they paid for the Raiden localizations... but not the original JP boards).

I think doing it by publisher is just confusing. What do you gain by doing pubs over devs? I mean, why lump 1 Cave game, 2 Raizing games, 2 Takumi games, and a ton of Capcom shooters into one vote, when those games are nothing alike, and made by totally different people?

Popular vote can work, which is what we did. Instead of picking two boards, we picked devs, and then picked 3 boards from each dev.

I have nothing wrong with doing a popular vote, but if it ends up being by publisher, that would just be silly imo.

And... I know what a publisher is. I just don't see how it related to the style of shmup, or how we would benefit from voting that way. Then we cuold end up playing a Cave game for Atlus month, a Cave game for Capcom month, a Cave game for M2 month, a Cave game for 5pb month... you see what I mean?

[brunoafh]

Going by publisher makes little sense to me as well.

I mean in the end it's just about getting a schedule of quality/diverse games and having fun playing them together. Some are gonna be duds for people, others are going to spark tons of discussion. So far every month has entertained and sparked at least a little discussion (even Axelay) so even with just that I'd say this is a success thus yet.

Random idea, how about user with the most high scores gets to pick the first game of the year next year?

[noiseredux]

Random idea, how about user with the most high scores gets to pick the first game of the year next year?

or you could go a step further and do it like this: Jan 2011 highest scorer picks the Jan 2012 game, Feb 2011 high scorer picks the Feb 2012 game, etc.

[dunpeal2064]

Random idea, how about user with the most high scores gets to pick the first game of the year next year?

or you could go a step further and do it like this: Jan 2011 highest scorer picks the Jan 2012 game, Feb 2011 high scorer picks the Feb 2012 game, etc.

I personally would love that, but I think some folks will want to have a choice in what they play, or will be worried that availability would not be taken into account.

I actually prefer someone forcing a game on me, as I will usually end up liking it.

[brunoafh]

or you could go a step further and do it like this: Jan 2011 highest scorer picks the Jan 2012 game, Feb 2011 high scorer picks the Feb 2012 game, etc.

That... is a pretty sweet idea. But I think it might not go over so well, if not even the popular vote we had is going over well. I kind of agree with dunpeal there though, someone forcing a game on me that I haven't played would be more interesting than voting for one I already know I like. Maybe just like the first 3 top high-scorers or something... which we already know is going to be dunpeal, ExedEyes and hashiriya1.

[noiseredux]

yeah I'm down with whatever. Like you guys said, I prefer a game being picked for me. It gives me a good excuse to track down shmups that maybe weren't on my shopping list already.

[dunpeal2064]

Maybe we should vote for forum members, and let them pick, to get the best of both worlds!