Japanese shoot-em-up maker CAVE is one of the few developers responsible for keeping the shmup genre alive (and, some would argue, for the genre's ever-dwindling popularity). We've covered several of their Xbox 360 shooters in our Co-Op International column, including Dodonpachi Resurrection and Espgaluda II. Now Japanese fans who have somehow abstained from buying most or all of the company's Xbox 360 output have reason to rejoice. The Cave Shooting Collection is coming to retail overseas, complete with a whopping 9 retail shmups, all of their DLC, and the company's sole XBLA genre entry, Guwange.

Shoot-em-up fans know that XBLA shmups seldom go on sale, if ever. That’s why we’re both surprised and delighted to see not one but four Xbox Live Arcade shmups on sale this week, all of them with 2-player co-op. The highlight of the sale has to be Radiant Silvergun, a port of the extremely rare Sega Saturn classic from Treasure. But heck, if you’re a fan of the genre you’re probably going to want them all.

If you are reading this news bit in anticipation of a new cowboys vs. dinosaurs game, well, I'm sorry, you're out of luck.  That would be Gwangi, not Guwange.  The latter, released today on Xbox Live Arcade, is a port of a 1999 shooter.  The game was developed by Cave, a company legendary among shoot-em-up afficianados.  (Deathsmiles, released on XBLA a few years back, is another Cave title.)  Guwange is set in fuedal Japan, and the heroes travel on foot, rather than flying around in a spaceship as is typical of the genre.