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Continuing my recent trend of reviewing obscure games from genres I know little about, Shoot 1UP is a vertical shooter on the Xbox LIVE Indie Games service.
Vertical shooters are similar to Space Invaders, but with vertical movement as well as left-right. They're sometimes called manic shooters because, well, there's so much going on that it's tricky to weave between patterns of enemy bullets.
The name isn't a reference to a video games site – that would be a different, altogether more disturbing game. It refers to the 1UPs that pop up from time to time, adding a ship to your formation if you can pick one up. After a few levels, you'll be commanding a squadron of about 20 ships. You can expand or contract your formation – spreading your fire or dodging enemy bullets.
Mommy's Best Games (makers of Weapon of Choice) threw that unique twist onto an old-school, 16-bit aesthetic that'll bring a smile to any Genesis/SNES veteran's face. Some of the backgrounds are a bit dull though — the naked-ladies level featured in these screen-shots is the coolest-looking one.
It's accessible for a genre that includes this, but you can up the tempo to 200% normal time. That should appease the masochistic, cyborg gamers out there. If you're not a robot, then you can slow the game down to make it easier.
Oh, the best part? It's 80MSP; a perfect price for this tasty bite of nostalgia.