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The term Shooter encompasses a wide variety of video games that employ shooting as the primary method of interaction with other objects in the game. As a result, Shooters can differ greatly from one another in the following criteria.

• Fixed or Scrolling: Very early arcade shooters, such as Space Invaders and Galaxian were limited to one single screen. Improved technology and increased memory have allowed more sophisticated shooters to scrolls across an entire stage, like Xevious or Gradius
• Fixed Orientation or Open: Some scrolling shooters only allow you to scroll in one particular direction like Xevious or Gradius, while others allow you to scroll in any direction of your choice, like Sinistar or Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Others are a mix, like Star Fox and Star Fox 64.
  • Vertical or Horizontal Scrolling: Among the fixed orientation shooters, many opt for only one type of scrolling such as Vertical (e.g. Xevious, Raiden) or Horizontal (e.g. Gradius, R-Type). Others present of mix of orientations, like Life Force.
• Manual or Automatic Scrolling: Some scrolling shooters scroll automatically, forcing you to dodge oncoming obstacles at a predesignated speed, such as the Gradius series, while other scrolling shooters allow you to dictate the speed at which you progress through the stage, such as the Metal Slug series.
• Perspective: A majority of shooters are third-person perspective. You are either looking at a profile of your character/ship from the side, as in any side scroller, or you are looking at your character/ship from a locked perspective over the shoulder or adjustable perspective, as in a majority of 3-D shooters.

Exceptions: Note that first-person perspective shooters are considered to be in their own genre, namely the FPS genre. Also note that games which employ a light gun as their primary method of input should be classified under the Light gun genre.

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This category contains games in the Shooter genre.