Gaiares

It was one of the first 8Mb cartridge games on the Genesis. Gaiares desIGN was different, and features one of the most original and unique weapon power-up systems in the shooters genre to date. Gaiares makes extensive use of parallax scrolling, wave and warping effects across all eight stages, and the bosses are mostly screen-sized, making it one of the 16-bit platform's premiere shooters. The space pirates Gulfer, led by the evil Queen ZZ Badnusty, plan to harvest the pollution to create weapons of mass destruction. Dan Dare , a young pilot from Earth was chosen to be the pilot of a new fighter ship to combat the Gulfer. MegaTech opined it was "an excellent looking game, but by far the toughest horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up available on the Mega Drive". A 2002 review by Game Informer called it "a shooter masterpiece" and "perhaps the greatest of all horizontally scrolling 2D shooters." A 2008 retrospective review by IGN called it "an excellent shooter that has aged quite well since the sunset of the Genesis.".