Gaiares
Gaiares is a horizontally scrolling shoot em' up that was released in 1990 for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis. The game is strikingly similar to the R-Type series and other well-known shoot em' ups such as Gradius and Thunder Force, against which it wanted to compete.
Story
In the year 3000, Earth has become a toxic and radioactive waste dump, turning the planet into an uninhabitable and polluted wasteland and nearly driving humans to extinction. The space pirates Gulfer, led by the evil Queen ZZ Badnusty, plan to use the pollution to produce weapons of mass destruction. The United Star Cluster of Leezaluth sends Earth a warning of their plans, explaining that if they couldn't stop them, they would be forced to make Earth's sun go supernova, which would destroy the planet and cause the extinction of human ethnicity before they had to carry out the process themselves. Dan Dare (Diaz in the original Japanese), a young pilot from Earth, has been chosen to pilot a new fighter ship to fight the Gulfer. The ship is armed with a powerful experimental weapon from Leezaluth, the TOZ system, which is operated by Alexis, the emissary from Leezaluth.