Red Alert1981

The game is set in the Pacific theater of World War II, off the coast of the Midway Atoll. The goal is to attack the Japanese Air Fleet that bombed the players' American Aircraft Carrier, pursue all Japanese Air and Sea forces, fly through the 16 levels of play, make their way to the Japanese battleship Yamato and destroy her. 11 Levels consist of an Air-to-Sea battle (with a huge battleship or an aircraft carrier as an End-Level Boss), while 5 levels consist of an all-aerial battle against a squadron of Japanese Bombers and a Mother Bomber that needs to be destroyed. As in 1942, players pilot a P-38. Two buttons are used: one for regular attacks (with several weapons) and one for special actions that executes either a loop like in 1942 or one of three special attacks that damage the plane. Unlike 1942, the player only has one life, with one refillable energy meter. Destroying a complete formation of red enemy planes will result in a power-up, such as a health boost or a temporary special weapons which replaces the default twin gun.

A helicopter themed shoot 'em up action game from a birds eye view. Developed by Toaplan, it is the successor to their first STG Tiger-Heli, and features similar gameplay.

Batsugun is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up video game created by the now-defunct Japanese game developer Toaplan. The title translates to "exceptional" or "extraordinary". It was the final game created before Toaplan's dissolution, and has been regarded as a key title in the development of the modern manic shooter, with elements of the game such as the size of the player's hitbox, the scale of their firepower, and the complexity of enemy bullet patterns all having an influence on future titles in the sub-genre. Members of the development team also went on to work on other successful manic shooters, most notably lead artist Junya Inoue.

Falcon Patrol is a two-way side-scrolling shooter. Players fly a jet across a looping area and must shoot down attacking aircraft. A small radar at the bottom of the screen shows the enemies' position. Fuel and rockets are limited, but there are several landing platforms where the jet can be refueled and resupplied. Before the jet is able to land however, it needs to be brought to a full halt right above the platform, leaving it vulnerable to attacks. Landing platforms can also be destroyed if they are bombed or enemy planes crash into them. As the game progresses, enemies attack in increasingly large and difficult waves.

Time Pilot is a multi-directional scrolling shooter and free-roaming aerial combat arcade game designed by Yoshiki Okamoto, released by Konami in 1982, and distributed in the United States by Centuri. Debuting in the golden age of video arcade games, it is a time travel themed game that allowed the player's plane to freely move across open air space that can scroll indefinitely in all directions. The Killer List of Videogames included Time Pilot in its list of top 100 arcade games of all time. The player assumes the role of a pilot of a futuristic fighter jet, trying to rescue fellow pilots trapped in different time eras. The player must fight off hordes of enemy craft and defeat the mother ship (or "boss") present in every level. The background moves in the opposite direction to the player's plane, rather than the other way around; the player's plane always remains in the center.

A helicopter shoot-'em-up developed by Sega. The Arcade version made use of Sega's 3D super scaler technology to create city environments where the buildings would appear to have depth. The subsequent home versions sadly lacked this feature.

Battle Wings, known in Japan either as B-Wing (ビー・ウィング) or B-Wings (ビー・ウィングズ), is a vertically scrolling shooter first released as an arcade game by Data East in 1984. The game was ported by Data East to the Family Computer in 1986, and was Data East's very first home release for this platform. The game consists of 45 levels (30 in the Family Computer version), and no background story or plot is given. The player controls a ship called the FX-1, and collects power-up parts (called a "wing") to progress through the levels and ultimately defeat the Gobunasu armored mobile fortress in the final level. The game consists of two different top-view screen levels, where the player can press the second button to descend to the ground whenever they do not have a power-up. The player is unaffected by attacks from airborne units while they are playing on the ground level, but the ship is automatically brought back into the air after a certain period of time. The player can still be hit by attacks from ground units while they are on the ground level, and can also lose their ship by crashing into obstacles. The 8-way joystick controls the player's movements, and one button is used for shooting, and the other is used for descending to the ground (or un-equipping wings). The background image continues infinitely when the player scrolls in the horizontal directions. Completing the final level of the game causes the score counter to increase to 9,999,999 points, which the player can enter as their high score. The player can also score cheap points by equipping and un-equipping their power-up. Pressing the button twice while the un-equipping animation is occurring cause the player to gain 2,000 points. The player gains an extra life every 40,000 points, so it is possible to gain lives almost infinitely. If the player gains over 10,000,000 points in this way before completing the final level, the counter takes over 20 minutes to increase to 99,999,999 points.

A horizontal helicopter shoot 'em up for Arcade and NES, where the player is tasked with both eliminating enemy forces as well as rescuing hostages.