Pulse-pounding Space Shooter for Serious Shmuppers

N.B.: You might prefer Jets'n'Guns Gold--$10 more, but almost double the levels and length of play of the original game.

We carry a lot of space shooters of various types, and it's easy to get blase about them sometimes--but at other times, you fire up a game and think "holy crap." Jets'n'Guns is a side-scrolling, Xevious-like game with loud, excellent music from alt-rock band Machinae Supremacy, nice eye-candy, and a huge number of upgrades for your ship, including fifty-something weapon types. It's not for the faint of heart, though; even if you crank the difficulty down, it's a tough game to beat. It's exceptionally well done, though, as the reviews bear out...

Convicts in Space

Back in the 90s, the conventional industry published a series of excellent space shooters with considerable depth of story--games like the Wing Commander series and Privateer. They seem to have gone out of fashion at retail, but if you remember them fondly, Cellblock Squadrons may be just the ticket.