Alien Stars

Some games age well and can be enjoyed for years and years, this isn't one of them because apparently, it doesn't work well on the newer computers. This is by the same developers who created my beloved Cradle of Rome series so I was really excited to see what they could do with an Alien Shooter game, after all, I am a huge Sci-Fi fan.
You can play in an Easy, Normal, or Hard Mode of Difficulty and you can choose to play with Mouse controls, Keyboard controls, or Gamepad controls, however, even with the mouse controls, it appears you will still have to use some keyboard controls to move the ship, according to the pictured tutorial...I wouldn't know because my ship disappeared as soon as I started the game AND I couldn't select the start tab with my custom cursor because the mouse cursor wouldn't move far enough down the screen to reach the tab! I was able to select ESC to start the game manually, but still had no ship so even though the game continued to scroll through space, I had no ship to control and no weapons to fire so I went nowhere fast!
From what I could tell, there are 12 different Missions and your goal is to collect Power-ups of the same color to increase your Weapons Firing Power. There are 4 different types of weapons that can be selected with the number keys 1-4. The CTRL or Left mouse button is used as your primary shooting control, the Shift key or right mouse button is your secondary shooting controller. There are 3 bars on the control panel to the left of the board, the first one shows you your Mission Number, the second is an Armor % indicator, and the third is a Battery % indicator. You can click ESC or the F1 key to access the Help menu at any time.
This looks like it could have been a really fun game when it first came out in June of 2008, but 12 years later it seems to have lost the Alien War? Maybe you'll have better luck than I did and actually have a ship and real weapons, who knows, maybe there are real Aliens in this game?

This game is great if you like a relatively classic space shooter with a very hearty dose of challenge!
In this one, you collect your power-ups that enemies drop in-game. Enemy projectiles come at you remarkably fast and tight-knit so that you have to keep on your toes. Also, the limited space you have to manoeuvre makes it difficult to destroy everything when a swarm comes. Finally, your high score begins at zero regardless of which level you start on, so if your aim is to get a better high score, start at level 1 each time.
I'm not exactly sure though whether the different coloured laser upgrades do different damage, for instance, does the red laser do more damage than the blue since you have to wait longer to get it? Also, with how fast-paced this one is, switching rockets or "secondary weapon" gets pretty cumbersome in the heat of battle. I end up just saving all rockets for the boss at the end.
Overall, this is a good, challenging space shooter worth returning to now and then.

This is a very fun vertical scrolling space shooter. It reminds me of similar games from the '80s, but with slight extras like better graphics and a better variety of units compared to similar games.
It can be really challenging at tougher levels, but moderately so at others. It also has a good variety of gun types and superweapon options, though it can be hard to switch them in the middle of the game.
Anyways, if you enjoyed the classic scrolling shooters of the '80s you will probably absolutely love this game; I know I do.