Destructoid - Ever since arcades in the West shut down in the late-90s, shoot-em-ups (or shmups) have faded in popularity as cinematic console games grew in favor.
The PC has a lot of indie titles in its enormous library to choose from. Picking a decent game out of the sea of crap is a tough nut to crack. We pick out 10 games worthy of your attention. Best of all, they won’t break the bank.
Necrovision is awesome, especially if you're a fan of the Painkiller series and made with most of the same key members of the first one. Never really considered it 'indie'.
Can't wait to play 'Lost Company.
Still, in a turn of fortune, Farm 51 are making Painkiller Hell and Damnation.
A useless lives system appeals only to pointless tradition, so either ensure it serves a purpose or leave it out entirely.
The old games give you a few lives and a very limited number of continues. If you can't beat the game with those, then you'll have to repeat everything. Of course lives are pointless if the continues are unlimited.
Hard4Games' Ric has a brief chit-chat about the insanity of punishingly difficult games before playing a punishingly difficult game, shown on video. He states, "Eventually, we psychopathic gamers accept the game-over screen as a discipline paddle, and each time the failure occurs, we rise up and begin anew from stage one."
