Horizontal and Vertical Scrolling Shooters!

I've been playing a bunch of shooters on MAME lately. Most recently I've gotten stuck on DoDonPachi. Normally shmups that throw a million billion bullets at you piss me off, since it's usually just a cheap trap to kill you and take your money, but the Pachi games actually feel like it would be possible to survive with enough practice. I dig that there's visible safe paths through (most of) the attack patterns, even if it would require inhuman reflexes to squeeze your ship through there.

I'm cheesy and prefer the blue ship with the spread weapon, but I haven't really decided whether I like the laser or shot configuration better. Going with shot lets me just unconsciously mash the fire button and kill stuff incidentally while I focus on evasion, but the other mode gives me a Big Fucking Laser to melt everything with. I'm wondering if there's any practical reason to pick the red ship, since its weapons really aren't much wider than the laser beam?

I really want to try Radiant Silvergun too, but I can't seem to get MAME to run it. I know it probably won't go at full speed, but after verifying all the ROMs (and yes, I remembered the ST-V bios) it pops up a window briefly and kicks me back out. This makes me sad.

Jam it back in, in the dark.