Balrog/DarthDanMan, whether or not Gravity Crash is considered a shmup in general, I consider it so, as with its most direct predecessor, Atari's Gravitar arcade game. I think my essential criterion (aside from the shooting) is that the game needs to have player avatar movement over the 2D plane of the screen (or the variation of the background moving around while the avatar stays still). Thus, top-down run 'n gun games like Commando and Total Carnage make the list while side-view run 'n gun games like Contra and Metal Slug do not (even though I have some Contra NES games in a PC collection, as well as Metal Slug Anthology for the PSP). The feel is different when you're restricted to running back and forth at the bottom of the screen. Also, somehow I feel like tube shooter Tempest is a shoot'em-up, but rail shooters like Space Harrier are not. It's hard to nail down.
Oh, I need to add Alien Syndrome to the PS3 list. The arcade version is in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, and I didn't realize until playing it a few days ago that it plays more or less like a multi-directional Commando.
Freelance, I wouldn't say yours is barebones. You have several arcade compilations on the PSP, including the Capcom ones that I don't have (which I assume generally correspond to my PS2 Capcom collections). And, you have Irem Arcade Hits, too.
I guess I should specify which compilations are the sources of many of my shoot'em-ups:
- Plug-n-Play
Namco (Namco I) TV Game
Namco Ms. Pac-Man (Namco II) TV Game
Capcom TV Game
Atari Flashback 2
C64 DTV
- PC
Atari Anniversary Edition and Atari: 80 Classic Games in One! (latter is a superset of the former)
Midway Arcade Treasures
Taito Legends
Irem Arcade Hits
- PlayStation 2
Capcom Classics Collection Vols. 1 and 2
Sega Genesis Collection (arcade extras; no Genesis shoot'em-ups are in it)
Taito Legends 2
- PlayStation Portable
Gradius Collection
Salamander Portable (Asia-region)
Soldier Collection (Japan-region)
Twinbee Portable (Japan-region)
Parodius Portable (Japan-region)
- PlayStation 3
Namco Museum Essentials
Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (arcade extras only, again)
- PlayStation (from PSN)
R-Types
- Wii
Ultimate Shooting Collection (known as Milestone Shooting Collection in Japan)
It's a much smaller list when you put it that way.
Nice pinball list! It certainly dwarfs mine. I seem to have stopped getting pinball games; the problem with pinball is that it's extremely addictive to me. I always feel like "I can do better! Go again!"; in contrast, with shoot'em-ups, there's always a point where I either pass the game or realize that I won't be able to progress farther or get a higher score without a significant amount of more practice. I can have a blisteringly high score in a pinball game and still want to keep playing. :)
Anyway, my list of pinball compilations:
- Plug-n-Play
Classic Arcade Pinball TV Game
- PC
Microsoft Pinball Arcade (a collection of Gottlieb tables, different from the PHoF collection; includes the first table that had flippers, Humpty Dumpty!)
Ultimate Pro Pinball
- PlayStation 2
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection
- PlayStation 3
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection
I tried the Zen Pinball demo but didn't like it.
The only real pinball table I know of in my area is a Stern Pirates of the Caribbean table at a Chuck E. Cheese.
Regarding Alpha Mission II, the armor thing is cool, but I'm kind of disappointed that you have to collect the pieces in order, and you can't pick up other armors while you're in the middle of collecting the pieces of one already. Basically, you have to memorize which armors are where in order to be successful at the game. It's still fun, though, and nicely designed. I have the PSP version of the game; if I had gotten the PS3 version like you, we could actually do online co-op. Oh, well.
