 Steamed RUN! Cider Arcade is a shoot-'em-up on Steam that was very clearly made by people who love shoot-'em-ups. The gameplay here is like a combination between Defender and R-Type, where you can toggle your direction back and forth between left and right, and a helpful map in the upper right-hand corner lets you know where enemies and power-ups are located as you traverse the area. The game is balanced well, it's difficult without feeling unfair, and I'm saying this as someone who usually sucks at shoot-'em-ups. The controls are dead-on, so if you die, it's your fault. Cider Arcade has a campaign consisting of six levels, as well as a survival mode, which is pretty self-explanatory. There's four different ships to choose from, and it really matters which one you pick, so I'd recommend to take care and try out each one to see what matches your style of gameplay. For example, I choose the slow one with heavy armor because I suck at shoot-'em-ups, so I know I'm going to take a lot of damage. More skilled players will like the quicker ships better because it's easier to dodge and pick your spots. Cider Arcade is all substance and not many bells and whistles, but the game does an excellent job of appealing to all players. For instance, for novices at shoot-'em-ups who suck like I do, this is a great game to get hooked on the genre, a good starting point. The ships and the difficulty settings have enough flexibility that you're likely to find a good balance for how you play, and shoot-'em-up experts can also find some challenge here as well, especially in survival mode. There is a story here, kind of, but it consists of like three characters, the grizzled old ship captain and a superior officer who bicker back and forth throughout the game, that stuff is obviously not important, and it's not going to make or break the game, but they did a nice enough job with it. They hit a nice note with the music in this game as well. It's a little quieter and more laid-back, and that better enables you to get into a trance as you progress through the game. A really nice and unexpected feature here is being able to choose a graphics filter so you can really screw with how the game looks, so that's really cool. Anyway, I'm a big fan of games that make sure to get the substance of the gameplay a priority first and foremost, especially in shoot-'em-up games like this, because if you do the gameplay correctly, you don't usually need any other features or modes or story or dialogue or whatever else. You just need to hold down the fire button and blow up everything that isn't you. So yeah, for shoot-'em-up players old and new, check out Cider Arcade.