Game of the Day - Gunlock

Gunlock (aka Rayforce) is a slickly done vert shooter with a great secondary weapon and superior graphics.

You have only two buttons in Gunlock and no bombs.  The first button shoots your normal weapon (and can be significantly powered up) and the second button shoots locked-on guided missiles.  These missiles and the great visuals are what make Gunlock fun.

In order to lock the missiles on a target, you simply "paint" an enemy by flying your cross-hair over them.  Your cross-hair is fixed in a position directly out in front of your ship.  So, you mark/paint as many opponents as you can, and then unleash your missiles which come out of all sides of your ship, circle around, and destroy everything that had been locked-onto.  It's a great effect.  In fact, just the "painting" of the enemies is a nice effect in that little targets lock onto them and show targeting information and a tiny little cross-hair.  Very cool.

What's also cool is the look of the game.  It is a space shooter with LOTS of detail in the mid and background.  Starfields that move, planets that you come close to and get very large as you fly by, quasi-3D effects when you fly by other large ships, it's all way ahead of its time.

Keep in mind, all this cool thought and art is wrapped around a very playable game.  The enemies come in a wide variety and have a nice mixture of difficulty in dealing with them.

There aren't a lot of shooters with this lock-on feature as part of the standard play (there were two sequels) - and not too many vert shooters that are this much fun.