Old style shooters...

Where have the old style 2D shooters gone? The kind where people would pop up behind barrels and in windows and doorways and you blow them away. Where you don't have to control any character, just aim with the mouse (or light gun...if you insist) and shoot. Simple fun.

Is there any shareware market for these kinds of games or has it all gone Flash and free. They would be pretty easy to code, so more or less all the work would be in doing the artwork.

I made a game like this ages ago (you can play it here http://www.ragtag.net/films/movies/slabbers/index.html ...some sound missing in the online version). Just wondering if I should do an update....e.g. Slabbers Color.

Ragnar

I blame the fact said games are just not fun without said light-gun, I hope for them games to make a come-back with the Wii, well, actually, one of the Rayman:Raving Rabbit minigames is an old-style shooter, point & shoot action...
(probably just a preference thing though, but I can't stand cross-hair control via mouse)

heh, i thought you were talking about those other 2D shooters (ya know, the ones with the ships...) :p

I've got some of them on Xbox - Operation Wolf & Operation Thunderbolt. On PS1 there was/is Point Blank which is very fun with a light gun.

Time Crisis 2 was cool on PS2 and you could get Virtua cop for it. Since I got a plasma screen I can't play them though :-(

There are still a number of them in the arcades. But as the others above me have said - without the light gun they just are not as much fun.

I wanted to make a game like that where you shoot cute little kittens.