so i've been catching up on a lot of old-school, arcade-style shoot-em-ups lately and have really taken to the genre in a way i never did before. i had played gradius and r-type before, but lately i've tried all of the treasure stuff (bangai-o and ikaruga in particular) and some more left-field master system stuff like the fantasy zone games, as well as western stuff like geometry wars, and i think i finally know what love looks like:

but i'm actively looking for recommendations, doesn't matter whether it's top-down/vertical-scrolling or side-scrolling or isometric or whatever, i want some shmups. go!!

I will give a not so popular one called Astebreed. Its shmup that does it in 2.5D but it does it veryy well and it is very fun! Although, I do suggest getting it on sale cause it is short

DoDonPachi and all other Cave games.. But Space invaders infinite gene is actually my favorite.. The iphone version has a level generator based on your songs on your phone

space invaders extreme was pretty damn good (on 360 and i think also ds?). will have to check that out tho, looks slick.

Now this looks like my type of thread!
I just adore the Chicken Invaders series, the new one was awesome! (I also gave it to Teeqoz for his B-day (: ).

Shmups are great! I really like to play them, and chase for high scores.

Touhou Project and Resogun are some of my favorites.

I would like to point out a particular favorite of mine.

Touhou 9: Phantasmagoria of Flower View

It's different from the rest of the Touhou games, in that it's a one-on-one competitive STG. I'll try to explain the basic rules of how it works.

• Killing an enemy will spawn a bullet on the opponet's screen
• Killing spirits (The colorful bird-like things) will send unique (character-specific) bullets to the opponent's screen.
• The small bullets can be destroyed with enemies' explosions. Doing this will make them re-appear on the opponent's screen (Bullets can be sent back and forth forever in this way)
• Players build up "Gauge" over time. Spending this will launch a special attack at the opponent, as well as clear out any nearby bullets.
• The number of bullets keeps increasing until one player loses all their health. The last player standing is the winner.

Gameplay Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P71FMPIcD9c

Fantasy Zone 2 gave me epilepsy when I was a child (all those effing colors!).

OT: My favorites were Afterburner and R-type... The best! Also another one for the Turbo Graphix16 I can't seem to remember right now...

was it by any chance blazing lazers? because that was the shit.

Pulstar is my favorite such an awesome designed game, i beat it this year finally