Isometric shooter

Zaxxon
Arcade - ©1982 Sega

Also known as a 3/4 view shooter or three-quarter perspective shooter, an isometric shooter uses vertical shooter's playing field that is modified for perspective. In a traditional scrolling shooter situation, the upwards/forwards is diagonal and the player simulates moving by the gameworld scrolling around diagonally. Perspective limits the size of the playing field, so generally there is additional focus on avoiding obstacles than shooting enemy ships. Isometric shooters are not limited to scrolling shooters, but can be multi-directional/area shooters as well.

These shoot 'em ups have not been a popular choice to date, although there have been a handful of popular titles. This type of shooter, much like the tube shooter, is more of an anachronism in today's games. These titles were remarkable in their times for their pseudo-3d graphics; when the hardware became sophisticated enough to fully render such graphics, these games had lost their appeal, in favor of the more traditional vertically and horizontally scrolling types.

Example isometric shooters — Zaxxon, Viewpoint, Blazer