Shoot 1UP Hot

This game does everything well: nice visuals, techno music, drop in co-op, awards, multiple difficulties and a bonus mode.

Well worth my dollar.

Simply awesome. Small bugs with the debris and shooting from the enemies but, for a dollar this is too good!

Well worth it and simple.
Balanced.

Get it! It's a dollar!

Just wanted to rate there are enought reviews.
This just makes me want Grapple Buggy more.

I have a confession to make. I love shooters. Not the first-person or third-person variety but the ones with a spaceship and more bullet dodging than a 72-hour marathon of The Matrix trilogy. I love them so much that I feel like it's difficult to rate them properly. Luckily there have been some generic and/or horrible ones lately to rid me of this problem and, because of that, I feel like I'm able to sit down and look at a good old-fashioned shmup with little to no bias. That is, until Mommy's Best Games came along and put Shoot 1UP out. Now I'm a slobbering idiot that requires a very absorbent bib for the drool and something to wipe this stupid grin off my face.

Shoot 1UP is a fast-paced shoot em up in the style of Raiden and other such games but with its own little twist. Instead of manning one ship and earning extra lives, you control a small fleet of ships (up to thirty) all at the same time and can gain or lose ships. All of them move with the analog and can either expand their formation with the right trigger or bunch up with the left. Expanding them results in firing a huge laser beam and covers more of the field with firepower but also makes it easier to lose ships. You can also hold X down to move slower but have better control over your fleet whereas normal movement has a little lag between your first ship and each ship after. You can also hold off your fire for a less than half a second and charge up a shield that destroys bullets when you fire next. You'll need every trick you can gather if you want to keep a good portion of your ships alive because later levels and higher difficulties will result in you losing a lot of your fleet if you're not careful.

Shooters need tight controls and this one is no exception. Thankfully, the control of this game is spot-on and not once did I feel like I lost a ship due to the fault of the game. With only four buttons, two of them being triggers, the only thing that needed getting used to was holding X for slower movement. I wish there was an option for a single tap to activate or deactivate this but, when it comes down to it, a little practice will have this becoming a non-issue in no time.

The presentation of the game is straight up old school arcade done right and ridiculous. Goofy ship design, hordes of gigantic insects, and a level of scantily clad (read: nekkid and strategically covered) robot women that ends with a boss firing bullets from her chests (or, after a while, just firing her chests) just screams out memories of throwing quarters into a stand up machine. The music is the standard electronic fare that keeps with the theme of blood-pumping action. And it goes to note that, even with 20+ of my OWN ships on the screen firing their own bullets and an armada of enemy units doing the same thing and sometimes with a large boss taking up 3/4ths of the screen, I never saw an ounce of slowdown. However the team there did it, kudos.

I could go on forever about the depth and the extras of this game. With three difficulty levels and the ability to adjust the speed of the game you can have a shooter for, quite literally, everyone. Though a playthrough of the game is over in 20 minutes or less I can't imagine not wanting to press start and go for at least one more run. Score fanatics have plenty to shoot for as well with in-game awards based around your point totals and an absolutely genius scoring system where you have to collect points after your enemies die to get the full score for killing them and these points go up or down in value based on how wide your fleet is spread along with how many ships you have AND if you killed them with a normal shot or with the blast of your shield. Believe me, seeing an enemy drop 4 million points makes every risk worth it. Along with two player co-op (SIXTY SHIPS!), the ability to unlock a different ship, multiple paths in each level, 17 in-game awards to earn, and the Score Trek mode that has you going with a MUCH more difficult "one ship one life" theme, this is probably one of the best shooters I've played in recent memory. The only bad thing I can really say about it is that, aside from Score Trek (which is insane), the game is a little easy to run through even on the highest difficulty level. After getting used to the mechanics I didn't feel like I'd lose all my ships at any point in the game, even when I was brought back down to six ships on the final boss. Still, I haven't gotten all 30 ships on the screen at once even on the easiest level and I have a lot to work for in Score Trek mode, so I still have a motivation (and burning desire) to play this amazing game.

Even with the toned down difficulty, this is pretty close to indie gaming perfection. If this game was three or even five dollars I'd still say it's worth the money but, at a measly four quarters, I feel like I'm robbing them blind. If you like shmups, even a little, there's absolutely no reason to not buy this game.

Shoot 1UP brings you back to the olden' days of using ships, dodging debris and bullets. It also adds new elements of controlling more than one ship. Quite like one of the highly anticipated Duality ZF by Xona games(BTW, the reason it hasn't been published is because they are trying to get a XBLA deal. http://xona.com/dualityzf/ ) Anyways, back to the point, Shoot 1UP uses a rather similar technique where you can control more than one ship. Expanding and contracting your ships into a tight formation or one spread out. When spread out you your ships form a beam at the most center of all your ships. Useful but, you've less control over your units, easily losing them. You can gain more ships via, power-ups you find along the course of your trek. In which you are trying to re-gain control and fight back the so sudden attack your enemies had sprung on you. This is a game where you are pushed along by the constantly moving background of the screen. A unique feature is the ability to increase or decrease the speed of the game. Shoot 1UP allows 1-2 players local players.

Overall: Worth the $1, nice little in-game achievables. There aren't many games who have achievements. Some co-op, Classic shooter. Though there is no health system, and the way of protecting yourself isn't as helpful.

Shoot 1up is a true gem, it's a space shooter that can be a bullet hell game if you wish(selectable difficulty). The graphics are great but have a retro style. You control a group of ships/organisms called a phalanx(SNES reference?). Using the trigger buttons will cause the phalanx to expand and contract. Points are earned by destroying enemies and collecting the point value left behind. A 1up is available for every 100k points or so. I maxed out at 12 ships in my phalanx but I am sure you can earn more. This game is a steal at 80 points. I hesitated mentioning the cost but it really is well done for what the dev is charging. The enemies are varied and the bosses are quite impressive. Stop reading this and buy it now.

For only $1, you cant go wrong with SHOOT1UP. 2 player offline co-op play, a fun scoring system and multiple paths for your choosing make a game that would easily cost $10 if released on XBLA.

Pros:
-Classic vertical shmup with tight controls and an interesting concept.
-2-player co-op play (offline)
-While most vertical shooters take up a third of the screen, Shoot1UP takes full advantage of widescreen tvs, which is a nice touch.
-The sprites are vivid and well detailed, and a nice break from all the polygons that is commonplace now.
-Having more than one ship onscreen is an interesting idea, and seperating them gives a more powerful beam for better strategy.
-Medals are a nice substitute for lack of achievements.
-"Choose your own path" makes for high replay values.
-Collecting point bonuses from dead enemies is actually really fun!
-Its $1.
-3 difficulty levels.

Cons:
-No online play.
-Keeping up with so many ships at once can be daunting at times.
-Even for a shmup its a bit short and kind of easy on normal setting, (nevertheless its still just a buck!).

Overall 8/10.

Great game - if you like shoot-em-ups, this is a must buy, costing only 80MSP!

A totally different way of playing, having all your 'lives' on screen at once.

Easy to pick up and play, and no doubt difficult to master.

What's with the naked ladies and the attack of the robot boobies, though?! Must be in for the lads that bit, hehe! ;)

I'm really enjoying Shoot 1up and the whole idea of using all your lives at once. It gets a bit frantic trying to contantly steer and adjust if you hav all your ships spread out or pulled in together, but that is part of the fun. It also can be quite challenging to keep them all from getting hit from projectiles, but that is half the fun. Really fun game!

When I was reading you can play with up to 30 ships I was a bit affraid of getting enough overview whats going up on the screen. So I just started the game up and can now report the following:

Mommys Best Games is back. With a great shooter and a great scoring/expand/contract system. Its just another fine example of how quality can looks at the indiegames-channel. And remember: They did Weapon of Choice also.

So after you have started up a game you are allowed to choose one out of 2 ships (as far as I see at the time writing this review) and to alter the gamespeed factor. After those decisions are done, you can set off.

You are starting with just a few fighters and get introduced by a small tutorial about the controls. After that you can fire away your bullets and get some fun. Easy that is.

To provide a wider field of shoot you can always expand your fighters. Expanding them gives you the possibility to create a single, strong beam out of the center of all surrounding ships as well as a bigger survival chance, because each time you got hit, one fighter disappears. So youre playing till the last one was destroyed.

But you can add new fighters by collecting "1UP" items some enemies are dropping. So there are chances to survive. If you get faced by a "bullet hell" it may be wise to contract all of your fighters to raise the survival chances of any of them (smaller overall target).

The scoring system relies on how much you expanded your fighters, so it is always good to stay expanded...but dont forget...expanded too wide and you have to check each fighter on its own for its survival chance if there is enemy fire focussed on a special fighter...so its to decide to stay contracted or expanded. There are several items in this game to collect. Point markers gives you points, while 1Up adds an additional fighter to your horde. A 2 Player mode and a highscore list closes this great package.

The gameplay is fine. There is no slowdown so far. Soundeffects are okay as well as graphics are. Sprite density is impressive in my opinion and the title can be declared as a shmup with bullet-hell character.

At a price of just 80ms-points (thats just ONE Dollar) this game is a must-buy - if youre a shmups-fan or not. Highly recommended.

Thanks for reading my small review and thanks to MBG for delivering another pearl to indiegames-section. My english may not be the best and maybe I have forgotten some things to report about the game, but for a first view this review maybe helpful for the undecided people.