Was expecting to see Recca and Batman: Return of the Joker there, nice.
In Recca the red power-ups are your secondary weapon, you fire them by holding the other button down. They do also block your bullets. But the trick is to charge your main shot while firing your secondary weapon.
As impressive as Recca's normal mode is, it has a hidden mode that taxes the system even more. In this hidden Zanki Mode every enemy destroyed releases bullets upon death, so the screen will be flickering a lot as you play.
Youtube videos can't quite express the insanity due to being 30 FPS only. The only way through the mode is to strategically use your charge shot, since it absorbs enemy bullets as it's charging up. In a real cartridge the mode is only accessible with a somewhat complex code, but people have made rom hacks of it where it's directly accessible from the main menu.
I didn't really care for Gran Tursimo 2 either, being a far bigger fan of the arcade-style racers myself. You might wanna check out Motor Toon Grand Prix (US title, released as Motor Toon Grand Prix 2 in Japan and Europe), it's also from Polyphony Digital and is a pretty great kart racer. Even if you don't like kart racers it's worth checking out, as it does things a bit differently and the game has plenty of hidden unlockable things to keep one interested.
