The game was one of the first to break out of arcades and milk bars and into the consciousness of non-gamers. A little lesser-known, but Konami fans should give the Thunder Cross titles a spin. Whenever someone brings up Konami shooters, talk inevitably centres around Gradius / Salamander / Parodius

The genre's roots can be traced back to earlier shooting games, including target shooting electro-mechanical games of the mid-20th-century and the early mainframe game Spacewar! The shoot 'em up genre was established by the hit arcade game Space Invaders, which popularised and set the general templa