Favorite Run n gun game

[KimagureMachibuse]

Favorite Run n Gun game?

[CIT]

The one with the dude in the tank, Metal something.

[BIL]

It could only be that iconic Konami arcade game from the late 80s

Spoiler

As for what's on offer, uh... I'll go with Alien Soldier I guess. More people should learn how to play that one. Has a rep for X-TREEEM difficulty but nah. It doesn't wanna kill you. It wants to cripple you. Only prestige players will get to enjoy the big, barn-burning boss demolitions, while noobs hobble along doing piddly damage, dying ignobly to timeout or ammo drain. LMAO THAT'S PATHETIC Look bitch, get your hands (AND MIND ) dirty, and L2P - then you, too, will tear boss faces off their screaming skulls in blasts of spacetime-rending phoenix fire! Burn like a motherfuckin atomic rooster!



Learn the basic controls and stage layouts, and it rapidly evolves into a style game, first and foremost. Don't be scurred! Oh also here's some tips - FO FREE



If we're bunching horizontal and vertical affairs together (I'm happy to do this with STGs, but I find the general presence/lack of jumping in hori/vert RnG too big a distinction), I'll go with Shock Troopers. Impeccably smooth shoot/stab/roll action, stocked to the rafters with compelling characters and rampant stages. Only caveat is to bump the difficulty to Level 8 immediately, even if you're brand new. Enemy reaction speed is deliberately a bit dozy, to facilitate high-scoring melee takedowns. Unless you're going for score, which is unfortunately busted by checkpoint leeching, you should crank it to max and enjoy the angrier enemies, who'll bring out both the melee and evasion mechanics.

BADASS JUNGLE MASSACRES ABOUND (■｀w´■)



CHOOSE THE BEST MERC TEAM, YEEE MAMA GIVE EM 2 ME MILKEH



Honourable mention to Search And Rescue, which besides being a rollicking good topdown rotary run/gun, is also worth studying for any would-be arcade-styled dev. Remarkably generous yet rivetingly intense affair. Killer mood too, like Aliens meets The Thing with a side order of From Beyond.

Charlie Ninja has always looked good, and enjoys acclaim from some excellent shmuppin peeps, but I'm sadly yet to play it.

[Sima Tuna]

Metal Slug, the original one. I think the first one is also the best. It has the most reasonable difficulty, while sacrificing nothing in visuals, atmosphere or gameplay. The sequels are merely iterative on its winning formula and some of the sequels introduced unnecessary bloat. Did we really need a bunch of different slugs, when most of them control worse than the standard Metal Slug? I mean, they're cool, but in a lot of later Slug games, you barely get a chance to drive the Slug. MS1 has my favorite story, along with MS2. Story in a metal slug? Well, I mean environmental storytelling. It's just you and your little chibitank vs an army of mechanical monstrosities and not-Nazis.

It's cool that the sequels have new slugs, new guns, new characters or whatever. But none of it is necessary. All the Slug formula really needs is one player, one HEAVY MACHINE GUN, a few grenades and one Metal Slug to feel cozy as fuck. MS1 is the perfect length and perfect difficulty for me. MS2 is an awesome game that performs like shit. MSX would be the best game in the series if not for that fun-destroying final boss.

Picking only from that poll list, maybe Mercs/Senjou no Okami 2. It's not as good as Shock Troopers, but pretty amazing for when it came out.

[XtraSmiley]

So many missing from the poll!

Demon Front is awesome and rarely gets talked about!

I just got a JJ Squawkers and while I think it's pretty awesome it's not good enough to be a top 10 RnG, but one to try (via emulation) if you want to try something different. The music sucks, so that's a major draw back, as the music is very important.

That being said, Midnight Resistance, great one, I've played it a lot on Genesis, but the MiSTer core just dropped, so worth checking out.

[To Far Away Times]

Hmm...

I think Metal Slug 1 would be my favorite. Sima Tuna caputred my thoughts on it pretty well.

From the poll options I'd probably go with Gunstar followed by Sunset Riders. Gunstar is one of the most creative games I've ever played. And I absolutely love the wild west themeing in Sunset Riders.

Contra: Shattered Soldier is my favorite of the Contra games, though it's often overlooked. I love how much control you have over your aiming and walking. The game is extremely static and memorization heavy, but I like that type of design a lot. The way the levels are mostly a series of set pieces and boss fights is cool too. It's a very memorable game full of cool moments.

[Gamer707b]

Yea I agree that so many good ones are missing and some shouldn't be there as they're not R n Guns. Anyhow, for me, it comes down to Alien Soldier and Metal Slug. Can't pick one over the other.

[Despatche]

Yeah, I'm not sure what to pick. There are quite a few things not on the list. I'm boring, and Gunstar Heroes gets fucked up on higher difficulties, so I went with Alien Soldier. Unfortunately, so did everyone else... should have picked Turrican or something.

Mega Turrican (the real Turrican 3) and Super Turrican 2 (the real Turrican 4) are pretty good.

[BIL]

Patchy, do you think this chap might be some kind of bot? Normally I'd think I was being paranoid, but we've had some odd ones lately. 3: With his formulaic posting, and shit, I feel like I'm looking at an ebay result.

At any rate, more people treating Alien Soldier right (and by that I mean burning its lovingly contoured Boss Massacre to the fuckin ground ) is no bad thing! So thank you OP, whatever you are!

[Despatche]

I don't think this account is a bot, just someone trying to gather information. I don't know what to do about it in either case.

Yes, Alien Soldier is very good, just a very boring pick. All the Treasure stuff is "overrated" in that it's mostly great, but people act like they're the only great games ever made sometimes. Same with CAVE.

[BIL]

Contact established, OP is human, if I'm wrong I'll accept permaban. DANGEROUS DAYZ

[DMC]

Contact established, OP is human, if I'm wrong I'll accept permaban. DANGEROUS DAYZ

Brings me back to the good ol' days, BIL, when we used to hunt moles on the forum--who told CAVE about free roms.

Do you remember this guy?


Or this letter?

[BIL]

Hell yeah, esteemed comrade District Mole Catcher! I happened across the criminal - and infamous XII Stag-loving deviant - Mole J. Clark just yesterday, in fact, while reviewing The Dux Affair of 2009! You can see him up at the top of the page, maintaining his ruse of friendly cooperation with the Germans, while furtively acting as mole for the Japanese!

TBH these days MJ might well find himself in hot water over his avatar I hasten to add - purely in the interests of impartial justice! - that it's not a golliwog, that's his actual fuckin face, so leave him alone you cancel shrews

[jehu]

Does Holy Diver count? I'm as partial to Slug I and Speedshock as anyone else, but it's no fun being Alien Solider sycophant #5.

[BIL]

Holy Diver would be a supremely compelling Actual Metroidvania (Metroid action! CV pits!), if not for its fucking awful input bugs. Believe me: nomissing it will rewire your ancestral 2D action neurons. You'll be bumping into bats and dogs like a motherfucker for a week after 3;>

Cracking to keep around for a laugh, though. Like some brutal Chinese Butt Stuff device you can put on your bookshelf. Would I use it on myself again? Haha no. Would I part with it? TBH no I'd miss its awful presence. 3;

I wouldn't call it a run/gun any more than I would Metroid or Megaman, tbh. Doesn't hit the body-shredding critical mass established by Contra. That's just me though, a great big elitist asshole :O

[jehu]

You know, BIL, come to think of it I think I remember poaching a few of your strats and oogling your 1LC to route the game for myself way back in my days as a lurker: greatest Christmas present of 2016. The video, not the game, though I do have a terrible fondness for it in spite of how it mistreated me.

Thread's making me realize I never thought too hard about the genre borders of the Runner Gunners. The Contra Body Shred Test makes good intuitive sense to me, but then what about Alien Soldier? Is it a Runningunn because of the paltry mid-stage slaughterfests, or would it be one if it was only the bosses? Is Cuphead a runningunn? Gunlord X?

I'll sleep on it.

[BIL]

Haha, thanks - that run was something of a Christmas treat for me, too. I too wil always love HD, just impossible not to wish for a time machine and an AHNULD programmed to hold the devs at gunpoint until they sort their barnets out 3;

I'm sure it could be patched, I may investigate sometime. Or ask someone smart to. We ain't half had some clever bastards! Good job too, I don't understand ANY of this shit, just thinking about it blows my goddamn mind tbh

SOULJAH's working category was apparently "COMBAT SHOOTING," (SCIENCE FICTION COMBAT SHOOTING, even! ) which I find wonderful and have since adopted Man I love those little sobriquets devs give their games. See also KCET's rejection of Survival Horror, declaring SH3 TERROR HORROR

I would say Gunstar, while structurally nothing like AS, also fits the Combat Shooting profile - they've a shockingly bumpy physicality, by Contra's icily surgical standard, or Slug's zero-contact model (generally, if something's able to bump you in Slug, rather than passing straight through ala zako, it'll probably kill you in the process, eg, moving vehicles). Not just their respective BODY RAM and CQC attacks, but the handling of hits.

In Soldier, it's frequently worth barging through a trivial -1HP bullet, or even a more painful boss attack, if it positions you to reap up tons of HP gems, which means more Phoenix Force, more ammo to play around with, quite possibly even more gems, etc etc.Yet Treasure's games aren't lifebar slummers; slop does get punished. I'm far more familiar with AS, so I'll leave Gunstar aside, from here on in (I seem to recall Gunstar punishing lifebar slum hard on its highest difficulty, but it's been a while and I'm a dabbler with that game, tbh).

However, if you go for that barge, and cock it up for whatever reason? You'll be left out in the cold, plinking away with Buster or wasting your valuable Burner/Lancer, just as if you'd eaten a bullet and lost your [Spread/Super Machinegun/C+C] in the Contras. So AS is well within the same ballpark, imo, even if the game being played is very different.

As for its free runs, they feel pretty beefy to me, tbh (notably moreso than the unfortunately run/gun deficient Hard Corps and Shin Contra - when they're good, they're spectacular, but they don't let you off the chain enough for my liking). Soldier's runs don't get as batshit crazy as OG Contra trio's, or Slug's, but there's two excellent reasons: 1) huge sprites would make massive crowds awkward, and 2) AS wants you to make every shot count. Even doing so, you cause quite a bit of carnage while motoring through.

> Act 1 got some good stuff, nice mixup of gibbering fodder, pesky snipers and roadblockers - these pricks won't escape my atomic rooster wrath! Super outdated run, embarrassing hesitance before Robby Teh Robot - who to be fair will hit you with a grenade to the nuts in a few more frames! I've since learned Robbeh Boi is Built For Bitch Slap - get up close and Counter Force his head clean off, get owned Robbo me boy

> Act 2 nice n' boomy too! Though it's clearly shifting away from pure run/gun towards hoppier action/platforming. Epsilon's a joy to control here, the ceiling walk and hover mechanics really shine as you endeavour to evade a dunking.

Wait, what the fuck is that noi-

PETA Seethebait

Spoiler

LMAO Look at this FUCKIN CHUMP! Playing the fishing minigame to salvage something worth jacking off to from SHARPSTEEL, because he took a disgraceful beating from Potatomans & Robbie Robot Lab Security LLC! You better learn to handle your shit, you, you... RETRO POSEUR PUSSEHCLAAT

> Act 3 opens with some fucken hardcore shootan, EZ to get sniped, the Snowfly Bridge is an infamous sticking point I still intend to return for revenge upon! Quick reflexes needed to mow through without stopping like a weenie! Slow on Counter Force = shot in the face and dunked, which will leave your Phoenix Force PHOENIX FUCC for Defender MkII!

Shifts to more of a precision platformer model for the game's very last run. I make a cock of it here, but I actually really like it. Crossing the gulf is just tricky enough to throw the Melon Bread Massacre into question, without becoming outright annoying. (MBM doesn't occur here, I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground at the time tbh)

> No more runs after this 3; one of Soldier's few significant flaws is the somewhat weak finish; would've liked a final gauntlet prior to Missiray and Z-Leo, not to mention a much stronger WOLFGUNBLOOD+GAROPA battle. Nailing the "stare down the barrel" double-Phoenix speedkill is rad, at least.

There's a fair bit of content there - and you really need to master these interstices too, as while they're popularly known as "refuelling stops..." the reality is quite the opposite. Terribly easy to get nibbled down to 80%HP and come into a boss fight longing to Fire Clothesline a motherfucker's head off like the big bois do, but you can't, because ur run/gun was bad 3; DO IT AGEEN and you'll be right sonneh

They mature really nicely over time, this way - which is good, because AS is an Assault Course sidescroller at heart, meant not for mere hobbling survival, but progressively more audacious, badass, balls-to-the-wall demolition (see also The Super Shinobi and Vampire Killer).

TLDR: SCIENCE FICTION Combat Shooting: ALIEN S.O.U.L.J.A.H.: RUFF N RUGGEDS LIKE I TOLDS YA fits my highly idiosyncratic definition of What Is Shump to the tittle, yeee boyeeeee Wait fuck! What is Run/Gun, I mean! Bit of deja vu to genre WARZ of Shumps Chat past, there.

*Shooting Ostentatiously & Utilitarianly Leaving Jagoffs Aflame & Howling

[Sima Tuna]

You know, BIL, come to think of it I think I remember poaching a few of your strats and oogling your 1LC to route the game for myself way back in my days as a lurker: greatest Christmas present of 2016. The video, not the game, though I do have a terrible fondness for it in spite of how it mistreated me.

Thread's making me realize I never thought too hard about the genre borders of the Runner Gunners. The Contra Body Shred Test makes good intuitive sense to me, but then what about Alien Soldier? Is it a Runningunn because of the paltry mid-stage slaughterfests, or would it be one if it was only the bosses? Is Cuphead a runningunn? Gunlord X?

I'll sleep on it.

What about shit like Mega Man Zero 2, which has elements of run and gun, precision platforming and character action games?

[XoPachi]

Im voting Contra but I like Super Cyborg more.

[xxx1993]

Does Sin and Punishment and its sequel Star Successor count?

[o.pwuaioc]

I don't think this account is a bot, just someone trying to gather information. I don't know what to do about it in either case.

Yes, Alien Soldier is very good, just a very boring pick. All the Treasure stuff is "overrated" in that it's mostly great, but people act like they're the only great games ever made sometimes. Same with CAVE.

Treasure and Cave are overrated. Or they're not my cup of tea. I don't care for bullet hells and boss rushes, and that's all they offer. Treasure in particular makes the most boring levels. DDP is decent, but then it dropped off. (Again, for me, for my tastes.)

Metal Slug is good fun, but Contra's four game run are perfection: Contra, Super C, Contra III, and Contra Hard Corps (five if you count Operation C, which is basically Super C cut for the lil' screen). The series is the absolute pinnacle of fast-paced run-n-gun action. My favorites used to be Contra III and then Contra, but lately I think Super C might be my favorite.

[Sima Tuna]

Hard Corps is my favorite because it's just so fuckin' stylish, although Contra III isn't far behind. Contra FC and Super C are beasts considering the console and limitations.

[To Far Away Times]

I think Super C is a a little bit of a step down, but it hangs around since it's decent and surrounded by greatness. Think Megaman X3 in the Megaman X quadrilogy.

[Sima Tuna]

I think Super C is a a little bit of a step down, but it hangs around since it's decent and surrounded by greatness. Think Megaman X3 in the Megaman X quadrilogy.

My problem with Super C is I think the game is a lot more unfair than vanilla Contra.

[evil_ash_xero]

Darn, I didn't get to vote.

It's a bit of a tough question. It would probably come down to Gunstar Heroes and Metal Slug 3. Contra 3 would totally be in there, if it wasn't for the stupid overhead stages.
I really miss the run n' guns. Such a great genre. Especially from my younger days.

EDIT: How is Metal Slug not in this poll?!

[o.pwuaioc]

My problem with Super C is I think the game is a lot more unfair than vanilla Contra.

Very true. It's really meant for those who mastered Contra and want more of the same but harder, like Super Mario Bros 2 (JP). It's hard to say that was a bad move per se, but it definitely turns off the less dedicated. And you get 20 fewer lives than with Contra! Personally, the 30 lives makes it a bit too easy to finish on one credit, but Super C could have used those instead for the extra practice.

I still love Super C, though.

Also, I found Hard Corps to be more difficult than Super C, yet you like HC better?

[Sima Tuna]

It's all down to style with Hard Corps. HC has an immaculate aesthetic which has aged like fine wine. Oh, and the japanese version of HC gives you 3 hit points instant of being one-hit-kill.

[Air Master Burst]

This poll was trash and deserved to stay buried.

Everyone else mentioned Metal Slug so I'd just like to add that Elevator Action Returns and Out Zone are better than most if not all of the rest of those games.

[o.pwuaioc]

It's all down to style with Hard Corps. HC has an immaculate aesthetic which has aged like fine wine. Oh, and the japanese version of HC gives you 3 hit points instant of being one-hit-kill.

I've been meaning to get the JP version for years now. It's on my wish list. One of the few JP Genesis games I've been seeking out.

[Sima Tuna]

It's all down to style with Hard Corps. HC has an immaculate aesthetic which has aged like fine wine. Oh, and the japanese version of HC gives you 3 hit points instant of being one-hit-kill.

I've been meaning to get the JP version for years now. It's on my wish list. One of the few JP Genesis games I've been seeking out.

Or you could buy the konami contra collection and play hard corps' japanese version that way. It also includes every iteration of Contra 3.

I think it's digital only though.