Danmaku Unlimited 2

Bullet-hell games are all about spectacle. They attempt to blind you to their orderly patterns with enormous spaceships, huge explosions, and dazzling neon colours.

Danmaku Unlimited 2 is no different, commanding your eyes with an ethereal take on the visual chaos of the genre.

You dance your tiny spaceship through a storm of plasma-cannon purple, dodging bolts of glowing blue and abyssal black as you fire out your own stream of gorgeous death. But beyond the retina-pleasing hues, there's a deep and rhythmic arcade blaster that fans of the genre will revel in.

Piloting your hopelessly outnumbered craft is as simple as moving a finger over the screen. Your laser-based death rays blast out automatically, leaving you to concentrate on navigating the constant maze of deadly projectiles that rain down the screen.

When you're hit, your shield fires out a pulse of energy that clears the screen of bullets. However, it only has enough charge to do this once, and when it's run out you're even more vulnerable to destruction.

There are two distinct modes of play. Burst mode sees each ship you destroy dropping blobs of energy. Collect enough of these and you can unleash a powerful blast weapon by sliding a finger down the screen.

Classic lets you focus your fire by sliding a finger down the screen, which is useful when you're up against larger enemies rather than squads of nimble fighters.

A second super-weapon engages when you've killed enough enemies or grazed enough bullets, and turns you into an unstoppable killing machine for a while. You can choose to have this engage automatically, or manually if you prefer to be a little more tactical.

Danmaku Unlimited 2 is a pulsating experience. It's gorgeous to look at, and it plays as smoothly as you'd expect, but it doesn't have the set-pieces or the spark of inspiration necessary to set it apart from the bullet-hell crowd.

It's still a massively entertaining game, and will keep you enthralled for a good long while. It's just lacking that final piece of the bullet-hell puzzle that would push it into the 'essential purchase' category.