If you guys are interested, you should check out the Touhou Project series of games. I've played these games, and the bullet patterns are hauntingly beautiful. The stupidly large amount of bullets is offset by the small hitbox of your character.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou_Project

Imperishable Night is an indie vertical shoot-em-up that's part of the Touhou series of shooters, which is well known among shooter fans. More information can be found here.
There are a lot of very nifty Touhou videos out there, but I thought this one was the most impressive and smoothest running of the bunch. Enjoy!