Under rating threshold (hideshow)
Good start, but it could use a lot of refinement. The weapon selection screen could be compressed into one screen with 6 buttons. It would be nice to be able to choose, say, Laser, Nova, and Stealth for your arsenal. The controls seem to be somewhat arbitrary, with primary and secondary weapons two keys apart, defensive mode sandwiched in between, and special weapon away from everything else. The ships come in from behind you in large groups, you can't fire backwards, and if you don't have the homing missile, it's impossible to hit the leader(s) before they go off-screen. The Barrier is useless, as its only benefit, the ability to damage enemies, can only be used by taking damage yourself. Basically, there's a lot of balancing issues which need to be addressed. But the good thing is, you have a pretty solid framework, so you only need to make some relatively minor changes to turn this game from good to great.