![]() Tyrian 2000 is a pretty lengthy shmup at five episodes with a large array of levels, and if you can have some patience for the jankier side of things you might have an interesting piece of shmup history on your hands. There's a wide array of environments (volcanos, ice lands, deserts, fleshy places, underground you name it) and enemies (though the enemies all take a massive amount of firepower to sponge up unless you're on the highest upgrade) and the soundtrack can be a bit catchy, if not peppy most of the time. ![]() The graphics and sound are fairly impressive for a DOS game and a shmup at the time. ![]() It doesn't help that most of the controls are a bit slow and slippery (save for the mouse), but the player's health bar can also take a mighty wallop of bullets. Most of the time the player will die due to being caught in an enemy's close proximity and get crushed, which can lead to some frustrating moments as levels are lengthy and contain some cheap dangers that will kill the player faster than they can react. It doesn't help that most of … MoreĪs for jank, the player has a life bar and a rechargeable shield bar instead of set hits like most other shmups. There are a significant array of options but the player will go for the most obvious optimal setup very quickly, racking up a lot of unnecessary money near the end.Īs for jank, the player has a life bar and a rechargeable shield bar instead of set hits like most other shmups. The meat of the system is using currency won in the game to upgrade the ship. Other than basic shmup mechanics, the player can control sidekicks separately and use some helpful powerups. The player has a main gun, a rear gun, a rechargeable shield, a generator for rate of fire, a ship type for health, and two sidekick weapons (one on each side). A lot of story and world details are hidden inside data cubes that the player can find in each level, but most of it isn't particularly interesting and can go so wildly silly in tone you'll be firing on fruit armadas near the end of the game. In the distant future, the player takes on the role of a skilled terraforming pilot - avenging his best friend's death, you take on a giant corporation and blow up a bunch of stuff. Best of all? The whole thing is available on GOG.COM for free.Tyrian's approach to shmups might feel a bit janky and have some frustrating moments, but there's a decently sized package in here that'll hold players longer that most of the genre. But chances are that if you were playing one on the PC at all back then, it was good enough, and it's still pretty fun. The absolute best in vertical shooters? No. It was shareware at its most exciting and generous, offering something that the big commercial companies had no real interest in bringing to the PC, and providing yet more proof that the PC could go toe to toe with the consoles. With somewhat better graphics, of course. ![]() My favourite part though was the DESTRUCT code, which unlocked a real-time, two-player spin on the old Scorched Earth that I remember thinking had the potential to be turned into a full game. Every new upgrade was exciting, and married to a surprisingly complex story of main character Trent versus the evil Microsol corporation, evil ales and weirder. Just when you thought you'd seen everything, it would casually give you a code for a ship that looked like a carrot. It's that Tyrian was a box of toys that never seemed to run out. It's not just the shooting, across a zillion planets and with about as many updates. But compared to the competition in the 90s, it was an arcade revelation. Was Tyrian great compared to the greatest shooters on other platformers? No. Raptor: Call Of The Shadows was initially pretty, but a bit of a bore. Apogee's Major Styker pretty much sucked. For years, Tyrian 2000 was as close as the PC got to a truly great vertical shooter, in a field of. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives.
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