Shoot 'em up

Shoot 'em up is a mechanically simple shooter genre that focuses on the premise of just shooting down enemies. Unlike other shooter genres, such as first-person shooter and third-person shooter, which tend to include more complex gameplay and exploration, shoot 'em ups focus almost exclusively on nothing more than shooting foes, often times with a number of different attacks at the player's disposal, and if any sort of complex mechanics are present they are most certainly given in the act of combat (such as the polarity shield system in Ikaruga). In many games high scores are more important than actual survival and completion.

Shoot 'em up was arguably the first original video game genre with the creation of Spacewar in 1962, which was essentially a duel against another player using spaceships. The commercial success and influence of Asteroids, Space Invaders and Galaxian made it a popular genre on early arcade and home systems. Since then shoot 'em ups have branched off into different sub-genres, including bullet hell, rail shooter and run and gun.