Bro needs help finding a shmup

[raigon50]

I haven't really asked the forums for help like this before, though I guess I'm still am not. My brother, actually, is looking for a shmup he remembers playing with a friend quite some time back (like, 10, 13 years ago) He told me it was for the PC, and when you played 2 players, you could actually combine the two ships together. It's for DOS, and he thinks the name start with an R. Any idea or suggestions would be nice.

[Drum]

Tyrian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_%28video_game%29

You can get Tyrian 2000 free off gog:

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/tyrian_2000

There is an 'R' game that's similar and came out at the same time, but it's singleplayer: Raptor: Call of the Shadows.

[BulletMagnet]

The "combining two ships together" thing sounds kinda like Raiden.

[raigon50]

Yeah, but I think Drum is right. I haven't actually played Tyrian 2 players before, but it does fit my brother's description.

[BPzeBanshee]

The suggestions I was going to mention (Raiden and Tyrian) have already been said.

Protip: Forget Tyrian 2000, as much as it's great for having the extra episodes and ships it's a pain to set up with DOSBox et al and especially so for Multiplayer. Instead I recommend OpenTyrian which can be found here: http://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/
That has multiplayer IF you pass the command-line through to it correctly which can be found in the README file included with the download packages. There's also a Wii homebrew port among others.