Shoot 'em Ups Will Never Be the Same Again

The earliest shoot 'em up games were incredibly simplistic when it comes to design, gameplay, graphics and general on-screen action. But then the computers they were designed for were very straightforward machines, compared to modern computers at least. The universally recognised first ever shoot 'em up game was 'Space Invaders', the arcade classic which was first released in 1978 and still attracts players to its many online game versions and modern arcade versions nowadays. Shoot 'em ups are technically a sub-genre of shooter games, a category of action games. Many types of action games are available as free online games today, but very few, even those marketed as shoot 'em ups, are much like the original 2D bonanzas of the 1980's.