Decided to make a brief foray into this genre.

[MrPopo]

I've recently found myself dabbling some more in this genre. So far I've been spending most of my time on Super Stardust Portable, Ikaruga, and Zero Wing. Good old Zero Wing. It makes me feel less like a noob when I play, thanks to the uberness of the homing shot.

[Gamerforlife]

I've recently found myself dabbling some more in this genre. So far I've been spending most of my time on Super Stardust Portable, Ikaruga, and Zero Wing. Good old Zero Wing. It makes me feel less like a noob when I play, thanks to the uberness of the homing shot.

Since I've been doing a lot of emulation on my PSP just recently, I've found myself stumbling onto quite a few shooters and figured what the hell. I tried out M.U.S.H.A. and Blazing Star recently. Just played them for a few minutes. I had fun with them. M.U.S.H.A. has a cool soundtrack. Axelay was fun too.

[LoneCynic]

Ack, if you want a good vertical shooter to try, I'd recommend any of the Raiden series games. That is probably my favorite SHMUP series. Definately a good place to start. Even though I'd back Doc on his Mars Matrix plug, it IS a pretty difficult place to start. (I lucked out and grabbed that one for my DC back when everyone else was jumping on the then new PS2 bandwagon, but that's a story for another day.) It may be pretty expensive to get a hold of now is what I am saying.

Anyway, if you want to give Raiden a shot, here's the systems you can get it on:

Raiden - Playstation 1 Raiden Project disc, Super Nintendo Raiden Trad cart, and it was even on the Playstation 3 Japanese Playstation network as a downloadable Playstation 1 game last time I checked. (You'd need a Japanese account and network points to get it though)

Raiden II - Playstation 1 Raiden Project disc (Don't think it is available any other way, I could be wrong)

Raiden DX - Import Playstation 1 disc (This one is the only one I don't have in my collection and am dying to get my hands on it.)

Raiden III - Playstation 2 disc (This may be a good one to start with, you might get lucky and find it in a Wal*Mart bargin bin for $20 like I did.)

Raiden IV - Import Xbox 360 disc (Need an import console for this one, it is an awesome game, but expensive to get everything you need to play it.)

Raiden Fighters I, II, Jet (III) - Import Xbox 360 Raiden Fighters Aces collection disc (Same method needed to play it as Raiden IV, it is a fun spin off series, and a blast to play.)

Anyway, that's my recommendation to you. I think you'd find any of these games worth your time.