Games Like Zombies Ate My Neighbors

The SNES two-player overhead shooter starring a shrine maiden and a tanuki — one of the platform's finest cooperative action games. Pocky & Rocky's fluid character movement, clever enemy patterns, and satisfying weapon system made it a cult classic that commanded premium prices for decades before its re-release. Japanese folklore aesthetics in an action game format done brilliantly.

Based on the Area 88 manga and anime, UN Squadron is a masterclass in SNES launch-era shoot-em-up design — pilots choose from three characters with distinct aircraft, purchase weapon upgrades between missions, and tear through enemy-dense side-scrolling stages with exhilarating firepower. Capcom's adaptation benefits from the SNES's Mode 7 capabilities and a pounding soundtrack that establishes the game as one of the finest scrolling shooters of the 16-bit generation.

Treasure's Genesis technical showpiece — a game with 25 boss encounters and minimal stage segments, designed as a pure boss-rush action game. Alien Soldier's six-weapon system, counter attack mechanics, and screen-filling enemy designs pushed the Genesis hardware beyond anything other developers achieved.

Rare's landmark first-person shooter defined console multiplayer gaming and demonstrated that licensed movie games could be exceptional. GoldenEye 007 introduced aiming, stealth mechanics, and objectives-based mission design to console FPS games, and its four-player split-screen became the standard for living room multiplayer.

Treasure's debut game and one of the finest action games ever made on the Genesis. Gunstar Heroes combined four weapon elements into sixteen possible combinations, three difficulty levels with distinct enemy sets, and boss fights of legendary creativity — including a board game level that remains one of gaming's most inventive stage concepts.

The light-gun arcade shooter that became the Dreamcast's best peripheral showcase. House of the Dead 2's branching narrative paths, cooperative two-player zombie-blasting, and gloriously cheesy voiced cutscenes — 'Goldman! Suffer like G did?' became gaming's most quoted bad dialogue — made it essential for Dreamcast party sessions.

Rare's N64 third-person shooter — Juno, Vela, and Lupus fight through insectoid armies to rescue enslaved Tribals across 13 planets in one of the N64's most visually impressive and ambitiously scaled games.

The PS1 WWII shooter conceived by Steven Spielberg during Saving Private Ryan production. Medal of Honor's immersive first-person perspective, authentic wartime setting, and mission-based structure made it the PS1's most compelling shooter — and the direct ancestor of the military FPS genre that would dominate the following decade.

The sequel expanded the roster to four characters and introduced the alien transformation mechanic that would define the series. Metal Slug 2's visual spectacle surpassed the original with mummies, tanks, and elaborate boss sequences — though its legendary slowdown was addressed in the bug-fixed Metal Slug X revision.

The run-and-gun masterpiece that pushed the Neo-Geo hardware to its absolute limits. Metal Slug's hand-drawn animation — hundreds of frames per character, explosions, and environmental details that no other arcade game matched — combined with cooperative two-player action, weapon variety, and relentless design to create what many consider the greatest run-and-gun game ever made.

Rare's stunning follow-up to GoldenEye 007 surpassed its predecessor in nearly every respect, delivering a sci-fi spy thriller with a phenomenal weapon roster, improved AI, and the most feature-rich multiplayer on the Nintendo 64. The technical achievement of Perfect Dark on N64 hardware remains extraordinary.

One of the N64's most impressive launch-window titles, Shadows of the Empire plunges players into the Expanded Universe story of Dash Rendar across both on-foot third-person combat and space/vehicle combat sequences that showcase the hardware's early potential. The iconic Hoth battle opening — piloting a snowspeeder to trip AT-ATs with tow cables — remains one of the most cinematic moments in N64 history and a landmark achievement for licensed gaming.