I used to love old shooters like Phoenix and Gradius back in the day, and now I've rediscovered them. I especially love 2-D shooters and pseudo 3-D shooters like Space Harrier.

I think that the Saturn is THE best console for shooters, but I've heard that the Japanese PC Engine has a pretty amazing library of shooters... maybe even better than the vaulted Saturn.

I've got a complete collection of all the Sega Saturn shooters (domestic and import) and I'm almost done getting all the domestics for Super Nintendo (Firepower 2000 is a great one for those of you with a SNES, as is R-Type 3.) The SNES is a great machine with some really cool games, but there are only a few REALLY good shooters and even those are bogged down with slowdown. The SNES really wasn't designed for shooters, unfortunately.

I was thinking of getting into the Genesis shooters next... it seems like there were a bunch of them in the 1990's and they run really fast. I've got about 10 good shooters for the TG-16, but I don't want to get into the imports because I've spent far too much money already on the Saturn and I don't want to go down that road again with all the cool shooters on the PC Engine.

What are your thoughts about the best CHEAP shooter console? Genesis? Is the NES really capable of fast shooters? How's the PSX in this department? The Dreamcast has a few, but I'm afraid I might get Dreamcast-obsessed and that sounds expensive. Are the few DC shooters worth the cost of the whole setup and the insuing desire to get every game made for the DC?

What ya think?