"The 50 Best Shootemups I Have Ever Played" Part II - The Run and Guns

[Lord Dalek]

And now with a change of venue comes the... sorta awaited follow up to part I of my epic two part shootemup list. This focuses on Run and Guns. Games where you control some guy on the ground with a big gun blasting away at everything in sight to make it to the goal. Most of these games are downright masterpieces by any stretch.

25. Guerilla War

Guerilla War is in many ways a spiritual sequel by SNK to their classic Ikari Warriors (not counting that game's real sequel Victory Road). Two commandos run from the bottom of the screen to the top dodging multiple bullets from a slew of enemies. Like Ikari Warriors, this also features tanks that allow you to take more than one hit and also deal out far more damage than your regular gun. FUN TRIVIA!  Did you know this game is actually based off the Cuban revolution of 1959? Its true! Player one is supposed to be Che Guevara and player two Fidel Castro. As the Cold War was still raging in 1988, SNK removed all of it from the U.S. Localization.

24. Contra Hard Corps

Difficult to the point of being almost unplayable, Contra Hard Corps nevertheless earns a spot on this list through its sheer audacity and amazing presentation considering its hardware.  Alien Wars designer Nobuya Nakazato returned to helm this game which was the most storyline driven of any Contra released at that point. With several branching paths, there are more levels in this one game than any previous Contra title and many are extremely long and complex. Where the game falls flat on its face is not the designers fault as much as it Konami of America's. Realizing he may have made the game a little too hard, Nakazato included a lifebar in the Japanese release but somebody took it out for the US version. Bad deal...

23. Gunstar Super Heroes

I gotta be honest, this game was kind of a disappointment when it first came out in 2005. The original Gunstar Heroes was never a commercial hit but it had built up an extremely large following based entirely off the fact that the game was fricken amazing. So a sequel on a much higher tech piece of hardware should easily surpass it right? Well...yes and no. Gunstar Super Heroes is still a visual feast as Treasure goes near overboard with the GBA platform. The colors are bright, the sprites and backgrounds are extremely detailed, and explosions (a trademark of this genre) have a lot of pow. What doesn't work is that one of the best things about the original Gunstar Heroes has been stripped out of this one, and that's the awesome weapon combination system. The new weapons system is decent but not stellar and can be considered downright unfair on the higher levels of difficulty.  This and the lack of two player render what should have been an outstanding R&G merely a very good one.

22. Sunset Riders

An unadulterated arcade CLASSIC, Sunset Riders is a goofy colorful western shmup with a neat platforming mechanic and some of the most addictive tunes from the early 90's. Although it may look sorta like a beat em-up with its degree of depth to the playfield, this is actually purely a sidescroller, which borrows from Shinobi the ability to jump from the bottom to an additional plane on the top of the screen (you can argue that Treasure who probably worked on this game later revised the concept again for Guardian Heroes a few years later). Also look up the game's ultra obscure sequel Mystic Warriors.

21. Metal Slug

Its remarkable how most of the trademarks of the Metal Slug franchise are already in place in this its first ever installment. During a time when Contra was on life support following its brief ill advised adventure into 3D and western development houses, Metal Slug was there to pick up the slack with its cartoonish, silly, gory, and ocasionally over the top violence which the Neo-Geo frequently had to strain to dish out. Developer Nazca was so succesful with this and their golf game Neo Turf Masters that SNK would quickly buy them out and begin to develop the rest of the Metal Slug franchise in house.

[Foggle]

SUNSET RIDERS!!! I love that game. Didn't know it had a sequel.

And, of course, Contra Hard Corps and Metal Slug as well. Haven't played Guerrilla War or the Gunstar Heroes sequel, though.

[Kiddington]

I loved GSH myself, but yeah, you're right; the lack of weapon combinations was a bit of a letdown.

Sunset Riders... wow, I haven't played that one in years. Anyone know if the Genesis/SNES ports are any good? I'd love to play it again, but I don't want an inferior version.

[Foggle]

Sunset Riders... wow, I haven't played that one in years. Anyone know if the Genesis/SNES ports are any good? I'd love to play it again, but I don't want an inferior version.

Not really sure how it stacks up to the arcade version, but the SNES port is great fun.

And there's always MAME.

[Kiddington]

And there's always MAME.

*slaps head* Yeah, I dunno why that didn't come to me.

Nonetheless, after reading about the SNES port for the past 10 minutes or so, I am intrigued about that version as well. It's actually not too expensive for an old cartridge, either ($20 on Amazon). I may have to check this one out.

[Lord Dalek]

The SNES port is pretty close to the arcade game in terms of quality. The Genesis version on the other hand is complete garbage and totally ignorable.

[gunswordfist]

OH MY FUCKING GOD!?! GUNSTAR SUPER HEROES?! Are you kidding me? That's one of the absolute worst shoot em ups I've ever played. The game was clunky and had some of the stupidest bosses ever. The first boss you had to shoot its hands to kill it and it just repeatedly slammed down a ship and did nothing else. The fight against Green and the gold robot are terrible clusterfucks. Such an awful game.

With that out of the way, fuck yeah at Contra Hard Corps making the list. My absolute favorite shoot em up and 2nd favorite 2D game. It's difficulty was of course its only flaw. Had to get my brother to play by himself then I would tag in at the last levels. That's the only way we can get the 4 endings. I love how your path is decided by who lives or dies. I want a real sequel with the 4 characters coming back in 4 player co-op and Fang's weapons improved. I used him all the time because he was a wolf man but his weapon selection kind of sucked.

[Lord Dalek]

20. Commando

One of the earliest top-down run and guns, Commando in many ways is the granddaddy of em all. As "Super Joe" your goal is to run through a hellish battlefield loaded with enemies armed with a typical run and gun peashooter and occasionally rescue hostages. The game is incredibly well designed yet still brutally hard and frustrating. Still... beating the thing gives you that sense of accomplishment few can.

19. Ikari Warriors

Ikari Warriors was one of the first games by SNK to use a rotary joystick. This was a standard joystick that had a special dial in place of its ball grip to allowed you to "spin" your character 360 degrees while still walking in the same direction. Some of these games were really good (this and Guerilla War), some weren't so much (Victory Road, both versions of Bermuda Triangle), some were just god awful (Ikari III: The Rescue). Ikari Warriors is one of those games which do its hardware never got a particularly good console port, so seek it out in an arcade if you can find it.

18. Midnight Resistance

Data East was another company that played around with rotary joysticks, notably here with the mechanic being applied to what would normally be considered a shameless Contra ripoff. This game forces you to be extremely good at it to get the best ending (which is pretty hard to do). Powerups have to be acquired through the use of keys. Same keys to have to be saved to rescue all the hostages at the end. Get shot and you lose the keys so don't waste them.

17. Super C

Contra is probably that rare franchise whose console ports were always vastly superior to their arcade equivalents. The brutally difficult Super C is a testament to this. The game adds three levels, lengthens several others and adds a brand new boss to the proceedings to jazz up what was kind of a disappointing arcade experience. Furthermore, the game despite being on the NES manages to look surprisingly better than the arcade game (which was all a series of grays and blues). And all the classic weapons are back too.

16. G.I. Joe - A Real American Hero

Developed by Taxan, this 1990 NES affair is a much better game than G.I. Joe probably deserves.  Based off the late 80's run of toys (with Captain Grid-Iron and Flightsuit Hawk), G.I. Joe featured enemies that would jump from the foreground into the main playfield. Something I don't think had ever been done before and not since.

[Lord Dalek]

15. Nitro Ball

Nitro Ball has got to be the most creative ripoff of all time. The game takes the game show gone insane format of Smash TV, combines it with the look and feel of MERCS, and adds elements of a pinball game to the mix. Wait... pinball? Yes this is the game where you shoot enemies into holes to score bonuses. It sounds absolutely bizarre on paper, but once you play it, you realize the brilliance of the concept.

14. Three Wonders: Midnight Wanderers

Three Wonders may not be the most well known arcade game Capcom has ever made but that doesn't mean the three games that are ignorable. Quite the opposite actually. Midnight Wanderers is an extremely well put together title that borrows some elements from Ghosts and Goblins and the Willow arcade game and gives its a unique fantastical flavor. The music has got that classic CPS1 tinny synth and grinding drums samples I just love to boot.

13. Contra 4

Funny that a company looking to "revitalize" one of its old franchises does the exact opposite but thats the case with Contra 4. Konami contracted out to American developer WayForward for this installment and instead of using the Nintendo DS hardware to make a game with Shattered Soldier quality graphics we got a game that looked like a long lost SNES title. That was all part of the plan actually. Contra 4 is set inbetween The Alien Wars and Hard Corps so it should look like a game from the early 90s, and unlike the previous foibles of infamous fourth party Appaloosa Entertainment, IT ACTUALLY PLAYED LIKE FUCKING CONTRA!!! True some mistakes were made (why the hell is the rapid back?!?) but this is arguably the best Contra since 1992, which does not necessarily make it the best though.

12. Metal Slug X

Metal Slug 2 was a great game but it suffered from so many problems that SNK went back and fixed it a few months later. The following revision, retitled Metal Slug X, is one of the best of the series. More weapons (like the Iron Lizard and Dropshot) have been added, its now easier to get "Big" mode, and most importantly... THEY FIXED THE BLOODY SLOWDOWN. Yes now it doesn't take 20 minutes to get through level 1 and 2 alone because the Neo-Geo hardware was blowing a fuse while you played the game. Instant win.

11. Vectorman

One of the fastest R&Gs ever, Sega's Vectorman is an underrated near-masterpiece. Blue Sky Interactive did something interesting in that they made their main character out of multiple spherical sprites which could all be animated sepparately. This made the game very fast and very smooth, which becomes a big deal when you're blasting enemies with rapid fire bullets that move a mile a minute. The even more obscure sequel Vectorman 2 is also pretty good.

[Foggle]

Metal Slug X and Vectorman are two of my favorite games of all time.

[gunswordfist]

I suck so much at Vectorman. I get my ass kicked everytime I play it on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Man, I almost missed out on this!

I have never played Nitro Ball, but it looks awesome. Glad to see Contra 4, Gunstar Super Heroes (I still don't get GSF's hatred of this) Super C, GI Joe, Hard Corps., Sunset Riders, Metal Slug and X, and... shit it's all pretty good stuff.

I'm not sure how much you guys like Shattered Soldier, but it never really clicked with me as a Contra game. It was a huge step up from the last two crap bags, but to me Contra 4 felt a lot more like a proper Contra game than Shattered Soldier did. Something about that game never felt right to me.

I'll be expecting Gunforce 2, and Contra (NES) near the top!

[Lord Dalek]

10. SAR Search and Rescue

SAR was the last of SNK's rotary shooters, and arguably their best. The game takes the Ikari Warriors format and stuffs it into a gory grim pastiche of Aliens. After a colony ship crash lands on a previously uncharted planet, a rescue team is dispatched to retrieve them. Instead what they find is a wreck full of corpses, zombies, and Giger-esque monsters. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only rotary shooter to offer a charge gun feature, turning your 3 basic weapons into 6.

09. Bucky O'Hare (Arcade)

A terrific game based off a forgettable licence, Konami took a concept they'd previously tried with Aliens (a run and gun with beat-em-up style controls) and made it play much better for Bucky O'Hare. In addition, for once all the voice actors from the tv show did work for a Konami game so it feels like you're actually playing the cartoon and not a game based off the cartoon.

08. Alien Soldier

Not released in the U.S., Alien Soldier may be the only game on the Genesis that can claim to be harder than Contra Hard Corps. Treasure took the basic structure of their earlier Gunstar Heroes, striped some things out (like two player), boosted the weapons count, and ramped up the difficulty ten fold. Its not the most "fun" game to play on the system but its one of the most challenging and rewarding due to Treasure's signature outstanding design.

07.  Cyber-Lip

Cyber-Lip is SNK's first attempt to clone Contra and its a good one. It lacks the speed and overall precision of its influence, but it makes up for it with extremely balanced and solid game play. The game's ending is arguably still the funniest and groan inducting twist in the history of video gaming.

06. Contra

Yeah what's left to be said about it? Forget the mediocre original arcade game, the NES remains the definitive Contra experience. Konami code, man stealing, that damn waterfall stage, really hard difficulty, Contra had it all.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I died so fast in Alien Soldier that I sat in disbelief at the screen for like a good two minutes.

Bucky O' Hare was a good one, I don't know why that gets mislabeled as a beat em up so often, but that is one awesome shooter. It's a bit on the easy side at times, but man is it satisfying. Especially how random some levels can get.

[gunswordfist]

Man, I almost missed out on this!

I have never played Nitro Ball, but it looks awesome. Glad to see Contra 4, Gunstar Super Heroes (I still don't get GSF's hatred of this) Super C, GI Joe, Hard Corps., Sunset Riders, Metal Slug and X, and... shit it's all pretty good stuff.

I'm not sure how much you guys like Shattered Soldier, but it never really clicked with me as a Contra game. It was a huge step up from the last two crap bags, but to me Contra 4 felt a lot more like a proper Contra game than Shattered Soldier did. Something about that game never felt right to me.

I'll be expecting Gunforce 2, and Contra (NES) near the top!