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Your favorite run and gun shooters.

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So I was wondering what are your favorite run and gun shooters? What makes a run and gun game? You're on foot with a gun. There are side scrolling and overhead usually vertical scrolling games like Commando.

Contra 3 and any of the Metal Slug games come to mind, but for different reasons. Contra games are agile, while Metal Slug games are stiff and deliberate with some incredible animation.

What makes your game of choice "the best" in your opinion? Is it the weapons, the variety, the comedy, the action or what?

I also hold the original Commando in high regard, but not nearly as high as Bionic Commando! The arcade version was pretty quick, but the NES version is the one that still holds a huge interest for me.

In terms of new school run and guns, I'd say BroForce. Outside of the parody gimmick, its just an absolutely fun game to play. Different every time.

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Metal Slug, most definitively. Also, Midnight Resistance, which I had the luck of being able to play in its arcade form, with the 8-way rotating joystick. It was like Contra on steroids! Also Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja, Chelnov: Atomic Runner and Midnight Wanderers from the "Three Wonders" arcade.

Now as to the line between a "scrolling platform game" and a "run and gun" game, I'd say that platform games have a slower pace, more emphasis on puzzles and strategy, and greater freedom of movement, usually allowing for backtracking.

Run & Gun games, OTOH, usually have "ratchet scrolling" or other types of forced movement, imposing a continuous pressure on the player to move forward. In fact, if you replace many Run'n Gun games' setting with space/air, you will get a pure shoot'em up game in many cases. I'd say Run'n Gun games occupy an intermediate category between pure platformers and pure shooters.

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Super C (NES) is the first that springs to mind, along with Contra: The Alien Wars on GameBoy. Love these two games.

Or as they were known here (in both cases), Probotector 2 (even though the GB version was in fact a simplified port of Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES), known here as Super Probotector: Alien Rebels... Jesus Christ, why does the entire fucking title have to change each time? If you just read these names you'd think that they belonged to games of an entirely different series).

Huge love for the first and second Metal Slug games too. I'd waste so much fucking money on these two when arcades were a thing in England.

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Abuse. Maybe I liked some other games in the past, but now when I've tried them again, they didn't feel so good.

Abuse is fun because it's about shooting and don't have annoying precision jump stuff, except in some 2 levels, which I usually skip by moving the player in the editor mode. Alternatively I could play an older version which doesn't include any of the annoying levels...

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Turrican 2 and 3 are, by far, my favorites. Their combination of exploring, large levels, weapons, and music just went really well together. But I also really like Ranger-X, Commando, and Contra: Hard Corps.

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yukib1t said:

Turrican 2 and 3 are, by far, my favorites. Their combination of exploring, large levels, weapons, and music just went really well together. But I also really like Ranger-X, Commando, and Contra: Hard Corps.

Agreed- my intro to the Turrican games was Universal Soldier on the Megadrive :D

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Jimi said:

Abuse. Maybe I liked some other games in the past, but now when I've tried them again, they didn't feel so good.

Abuse is fun because it's about shooting and don't have annoying precision jump stuff, except in some 2 levels, which I usually skip by moving the player in the editor mode. Alternatively I could play an older version which doesn't include any of the annoying levels...

Seconding this. Liked the combat, and some of the traps and sets makes it interesting.

Speaking of, are there any similar shooters that uses mouse aiming, aside from Soldat?

yukib1t said:

Turrican 2 and 3 are, by far, my favorites. Their combination of exploring, large levels, weapons, and music just went really well together.


There's a fan-made project Hurrican (free) for anyone interested.

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Metal Slug, Contra, Alien Hominid, Doom Troopers and anything that's similiar to those.
Oh btw Alien Hominid is very good one, try it if you haven't, you will thank me later.

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Xain'd Sleena (heh, what a name)



Also, Toki/Juju:



Though rather than "run'n gun", this is more like "walk'n spit" :D

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Contra & Metal Slug X are my all time favorite run & gun shooters!

Since we are on the subject of this theres also this game call Super Cyborg ;)

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A bit crude, but as they say, "oldie but goodie":



Think about it: a 1985 game where you roam around, mincemeating baddies with magnum buckshot and even bazookas! Sure rings some bells ;-)

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I can't even comprehend what's going on in the Death wish 3 game. He goes into other rooms and buildings when he's nowhere near a door or screen edge.

Are there 3 players that look the same and they're swapped out? Kinda looks like the first horde mode.

Super Cyborg looks awesome like Contra without being Contra which is more than I can say for 8bit Commando.

Wow the slowdown on Xain. With it that bad you'd think someone would have limited the enemies or programmed them differently.

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One of my favorite run and gun shooters is actually on an old second generation gaming console called Colecovision. The game is Frenzy and you play as a green stick figure looking guy running around shooting robots. It's also one of those play until you die which is typical of most arcade games.

Check it out, it's pretty fun.

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the_miano said:

One of my favorite run and gun shooters is actually on an old second generation gaming console called Colecovision. The game is Frenzy

Wow, so Berzerk had a sequel? I had no idea, looks cool!
That freaking face...

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Noiser said:

Wow, so Berzerk had a sequel? I had no idea, looks cool!
That freaking face...


The game is totally worth getting a Colecovision :)

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In terms of PC run and gun games, there's not many I can think of off the top of my head.
- Metal Slug franchise.
- Intervision 2.
- 8-Bit Commando.
- Commander Cool 2 might be a platform shooter
- Broforce might be a platform shooter
- Ted before Dawn

yukib1t said:

Doominator2, this one is really good: http://www.pekaro.de/t2002.html

And if we're also mentioning games like Berzerk, then I'd have to chime in with Smash TV and especially Robotron. Playing Robotron on the hardest difficulty is an amazing experience.


I tried it, the controls really throw me off. I suppose they have to be the way they are for the GameBoy Advance.. Up to jump. Standing in one place activates 8 way shooting, even if I never need it when I'm standing. Rebinding the keys doesn't rebind the menu controls

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