About a week ago, I fired up the old MAME sitting on my fiancee's computer. (Well, I fired it up after downloading the most recent version of it.) For those not in the know, MAME is a public domain emulator of arcade games. I normally use MAME only under a self-set code of honor: no games released in the past 7 years or less, kind of like a statute of limitations. Heck, I even own some of the games I emulate. Can never tell when one will get a cabinet and the space to play that Final Fight PCB board on...

Anyway, I made an exception to the rules this time, having found a new ROM site with a plethora of games I'd never managed to see before, and some I hadn't even heard of. I took a look at the screenshots, and grabbed some choice selections, mostly shooters ranging from 1995 to 1999.

What I found left me in shock. I used to wonder about where all the shooters have disappeared to, and why they stopped making the kind of profits companies needed to make them. Now I know. Somewhere in the past 5 years, shooters just started sucking.

Don't get me wrong, they have the graphics, they have the flash, they have the big fancy weapons, but the gameplay just isn't there. Looking from one game to another, all I saw were games which said "How close can we tread the line between challenging and so insanely difficult that players tell us 'Piss off!'" Judging from what I saw, pretty much every company, Capcom included, stepped over the line.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a "Ninja skillz" gamer. Einhander was a challenge for me, even on normal, but it was fun, just like the other shooters I was weaned on--Gradius, Salamander, R-Type, Thunderforce... Not to mention true classics in the category like Galaga and Gyruss.

Somewhere along the way, the "Extreme" habit hit shooters, turning them into yen- and quarter-munchers so painful to play that even being able to say "I beat Dangun Feveron" isn't enough. There isn't time to enjoy the flash and pizzazz hardware is capable of due to something akin to twelve thousand bullets coming at you from every angle. What companies need to remember is each quarter popped into the machine makes more money for the arcade owner, sure, but only if the gameplay is fun enough to lure people back. Inescapable, certain death just isn't fun, at least for me. And it looks like I'm not alone.

Some out there would call me a gaming wimp. My magazine of choice, Gamefan, would look upon me with disdain to hear me speak of their hardcore shooters so. But that's how it must be, because games are all about fun. So, I'll just curl up here with Time Pilot and Star Force and wait for companies to remember what shooters such a staple of the industry in the first place.