Arcade shooters in top/isometric 2D or fixed iso 3D view

[piydek]

I've been playing quite a lot of the new Alien Breed games lately and liked them a lot. I've also played Shadowgrounds, which was good and Alien Swarm (the new version, not the UT mod) which i didn't like that much, but it was OK. Haven't played Alien shooter yet.

Is there any other games comparable to these that are possible to run on a Win7 machine? This:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NQvEuZu3p0 seems rather OK, but I don't care for the room-system and general mindless feel that much. If there was a game that had graphics in the similar style but had some sense of missions that would be great. Ideally, I'd like something like the old Alien Breed games on the amiga. I remember seeing some game footage of a similar indie game on jewtube about a year ago and at the time the game wasn't out yet, but i can't remember the name of it or find it again. It looked like something in that vein. Anyway, i was hoping there's people on the Codex playing such games that are willing to share their findings.

 

[Disconnected]

You might want to try Aquaria. It's sort of an ambient-shooter hybrid with a very slow start and a lot of back-tracking. But if you play on the highest difficulty and stick with it to the first boss fight, it starts getting fun.

ShadowGrounds: Survivour is OK as well. Some prefer it over the first one. I don't.

Ghouls & Garters appears somewhat similar to the vid you link to, but with larger stages. Note that I mention it because of the similarities to the vid, not because I think it's worth playing.

Then there's the Alien/Zombie Shooter games. All four are lots of fun & fuking hard.

I guess Greed: Black Border deserves a mention too, if for no other reason than that it is unusually pretty. Unfortunately it has Diablo-like controls rather than WASD+mouse aim, and worse still, suffers from input lag. Unless/until that gets patched, it isn't worth playing in my opinion (says the guy who beat it... Incidentally, it's pretty short).

I'm almost certain I saw at least one really good shooter re-released on GOG not too long ago, but I can't remember which right now.

 

[Destroid]

I'd suggest Notrium. It's more of a survival game than an action game but the combat mechanics are exactly the same as these other games you mention, it's a lot of fun, very challenging, free, and has four characters that all play quite differently and need different approaches to solve the problems you face.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

You might want to try Aquaria. It's sort of an ambient-shooter hybrid with a very slow start and a lot of back-tracking. But if you play on the highest difficulty and stick with it to the first boss fight, it starts getting fun.

Even though Aquaria's controls and gameplay mechanics suggest that it is a shooter, it is in fact something else. While you'll have to shoot various foes at various points, this is by no means the only thing you do in this game. There are puzzles to solve and items to hunt down, but generally it is a free-range exploration game.

EDIT: Typo.

 

[DraQ]

From what I recall, Raven's Take No Prisoners was fairly fun, if low-brow game.

It's 3D but uses top-down perspective (two actually, first is fixed with PC stuck in the middle of the screen, the other one rotates with the character and is shifted a little bit so that the character is always at the bottom of the screen).

The game has non-linear world structure (not much of story nonlinearity, or story in general), so that you can move between areas pretty much freely, features a lot of diverse weaponry armours and other items, several damage types (some enemies may be immune to certain forms of damage - usually, but not always, logically), ability to drive vehicles and generous amounts of carnage.

Out of the more interesting elements, there is AI that can do pretty much everything player can, including picking up weapons, using items like medkits or manning vehicles, a lot of destructible junk lying around the levels and ability to use pretty much everything you can reasonably expect to be able to pick up and throw as improvised weapon of sorts.

 

[Abraxas]

Crusader: No Regret and Crusader: No Remorse, forgot which one is the sequel. Both 2D isometric, both great.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Crimsonland is pretty fun.

 

[piydek]

Thanks for the cool suggestions guys. I like all the variations on the fundamental gameplay idea that your suggestions contain. Aquaria seems cool, Ghouls & garters, Take no prisoners could be lots of fun also. Crimsonland could also work for short sessions of pure action, although i like a bit more "level" oriented games of this kind, where levels are interconnected and have some kind of progression. I've played Crusader games - those are really good, although the "scrolling" in them is terrible. I've also played Shadowgrounds: survivor.

Keep them coming if you have something more.

 

[Metro]

Yeah Aquaria is nothing like those games. I'm assuming you've already tried Nation Red (although that is mostly 'pure action' and doesn't really have levels)? There's also Burn Zombie Burn.

 

[Destroid]

Tha Chaos Engine?

 

[shihonage]

Wait till my ASCII shooter comes out.