shmup

shmup

A contraction of "shoot 'em up," a video game genre in which the objective is to shoot a large number of enemies while maneuvering to avoid their attacks, especially by controlling a single spacecraft or aircraft. I used to love playing shmups at our local arcade growing up. It required such quick reactions and skill that you really felt like you had accomplished something when you finally made it all the way through!
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • shoot ’em up
  • shoot 'em up
  • shoot to ribbons
  • shot to ribbons
  • shoot (one's) breakfast
  • shoot one’s breakfast
  • shoot-out
  • shot to pieces
  • shoot to pieces
  • shoot full of holes
References in periodicals archive
A great shmup is my weakness, which is why I've been unable to tear myself away from the XBOX this week.
As complex as the system sounds, it actually brings a refreshing twist to the classic shmup.
Sadly, Drifting Lands just doesn't have the core quality to be anything more than a substandard shmup with frills.
But the best scrolling shoot-'em-ups (or 'shmups' if you're an Amiga-worshipping 40-year-old) are more like elaborate mazes than straight blasterthons, forcing you to bob and weave through slews of incoming missiles like a prize fighter.
Desolators is a vertical scrolling shmup (shoot em up), a game genre popularized in the 80's, High profile entries in the genre appear fairly often such as Sine mora, Resogun, and the upcoming open world shmup Galak-Z on Playstation 4.