learning to fly

[noiseredux]

this reminds me. Sometimes I like to make mix cd's that are made up of the same song title. Like what we're doing here. Generic phrases/cliche's/etc work great. I mean, how many songs do you think are called "Love" or something like that. Haha.

[D.D.D.]

And I was hoping for a Tom Petty thread.

Why don't you give 1942 a go. It's always been one of my fav's.

Shmups without a good stick is like "learning to fly...but I ain't got wings"

Well I've never played a shooter in the arcade so I'm kinda honed on a d-pad (even in MAME). I tried that SS stick I got the other week and everything just felt off 'cause it felt like a delay... well there is more of a delay 'cause the stick has more throw/movement than a d-pad (like a manual with a longer knob/stick than shorter).
I just assume there's a learning curve to them.

[Hobie-wan]

I also really like shooters by Compile. http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/aleste/compile.htm
Blazing Lazers (TG16) and Super Aleste/Space Megaforce (SNES) are two of my all-time favorites in the non-bullet-hell shooters.

I was going to suggest Compile as well. Control is always spot on in their games. They can be difficult, but you never feel cheated when you die. It's always a case of 'yup, I screwed up'.

A stick is a good idea, even a medium quality one will help as trying to do that much dodging and direction changes can wreck your thumb. Though amusingly I still play Space Megaforce/Super Aleste better with a SNES pad because I've just played it so much that way over the years. Using the shoulder buttons to change modes feels better than face buttons with a stick, plus having pause on the left shoulder is awesome for when you gotta make a quick pause for a sec.

[Lord_Santa]

thanks for all the replies, guys

as I've figured it there's bound to be... thousands? shmups out there and I need to weed out somehow

I'll give 1942 a go, remember playing that somewhat on 8-bit, IIRC

as for the title goes, I was more suggesting that most shmups involve some kind of flying vehicle/person and thus "learning to fly"

some nice references though and it was probably somewhere in the back of my head all of them, but Hillary Duff, at least ^^

I almost figured an arcade-stick would be the peak of these kinds of games
since I am used to using joysticks, rather than gamepads, I think I would be right at home if I could only get the proper stick

my most favorite one throughout time and space would be the TAC-2 joystick 9-pin, it has two buttons, but they both connect to the same, but this should not be hard to circumvent

I'll be keeping an eye out for some stick in my range, I was mainly curious how much quality can shift in the different price-ranges