Wild Guns (1994)

Preliminary: I loved the title screen font and general Look. I liked the nostalgia reminding me of the classic shooting gallery games, I wish I could remeber teh name but there was a series of arcade games with different themes like a fantasy one a western one and so one. Anyway, it gave me those Feels.

However, not a big fan of the one hit kills. And it's a bit overwhelming, clearly rooted in the shmup/cute em up love for overwhelming UIs and complexities when I just want to shoot and have fun. That being said, I just got through the first area/boss and enjoyed it. A bit repetitive with the nromal enemies but still well-done. The upgraded weapons were fun. It was confusing about the enemies with the knives at first, but I read up a bit and discovered you can melee them by being close and pressing the shoot button.

I like the double jump and last second jump roll dodges. Just not sure how long this can keep my itnerest, tho it'll likely earn a 3 or even 4 star depending. Usually for the 90s shmups and brawlers just can't hold my interest long enough. The music in the level select screen is great tho... I just am excited for Earthbound coming up very soon!

As always I like that you can shoot away some enemy projectiles.

But yea as usual it just gets to a difficulty and bullet hell/swarming-of-enemies I can't get into. The music stayed excellent throughout tho!

Look: 8/10

Sound: 8.5/10

Play: 7/10

Feel: 7.5/10

Attachment: 7/10

Overall: 7.6/10

Wild Guns is a game with plenty of replayability and loads of fun, even if some of the mechanics don't quite feel as fun as the others.

Annie and her bounty hunter Clint are seeking revenge for the death of Annie's family, and there's only one way how: with shooting a bunch of bad guys and robots! Each segment is similar to a third-person rail shooting segment (except the gallery is standing still instead of moving). Players may move a reticle across the screen and shoot, and also jump and roll to avoid enemy fire. Shooting bullets helps build a special gun meter, and other items and weapons and bonuses can be gotten by shooting various bits on the landscape.

There are also a few other mechanics to deal with - dynamite can be picked up and thrown back, enemies can be stunned for a short period of time with the lasso, and foreground enemies can be hit before they stab the player. These are all done with the same button as the shoot button and can be easily mistaken for each other - often or not a planned hit will become an accidental lasso, and the slow timing of the lasso vs other attacks can end up with a frustrating death. Screen-clearing bombs also exist to help get some breathing room or get out of a bad situation.

As for difficulty the game can be fairly hard even on Easy mode, as only slight variations in gameplay mechanics between the modes are present. That said, the game can be played many times for score, the gameplay loop is quick, the co-op can be a blast if you have the players, and life-ups are fairly consistent.

The style of the game is quite unique, with a Western and sci-fi blend with robots and tanks alongside deserts, cowpokes, and gold mines. Music is a SNES take on triumphant and exciting Western music, and while it's not totally standout it helps add some background flair to the barrage of bullet audio effects.

Wild Guns is a whole bunch of interesting and unique gameplay elements slapped together into a solid whole. Not all of it works and some of the control schemes can be frustrating to work with but when it does work, it truly shines.

Wild Guns, for SNES

Rating: 8.2/10; Great

Wild Guns is a shooting gallery game where the player is shown in the foreground, and enemies are in the background (though there are a few enemies that show up in the foreground with melee weapons, and must be meleed rather than shot). The directional pad controls both the character and crosshair movement simultaneously, and the crosshair moves much faster than the person. Movement is not hugely important, while shooting accurately is. The crosshair moves at a fixed speed, and it is impossible to whip around and shoot all over the screen as if you were using a mouse on a PC, so there is a great deal of tactical consideration about where to move the crosshair.

One of the slightly annoying features is that rapidly pressing the shoot button fires a stunning lasso which takes some time to charge up and throw. I did not realize that you could hold the shoot button to fire constantly (there is no ammo or reloading, though special powerup guns have limited ammo). The lasso should have been bound to a different button, because not all buttons are used. It would also have been nice if you could press something to switch between a special weapon and the default weapon to conserve ammo.

You die in a single hit, though it is not too difficult to avoid dying because the location of all projectiles is clearly indicated, so just don’t be there when the bullet touches that part of the screen (or the explosive explodes), though there are a couple boss attacks that do not have telegraphed crosshairs on the screen. The challenge comes from avoiding attacks from many enemies at the same time, all the while trying to kill them too. There is an impressive variety of enemies and bosses, and the only one that I did not like was the boss who crawls around on his hands and knees, and for some reason is immune to damage while doing that. He makes a repeat appearance near the end, as if fighting him once was not bad enough. The story was rather lacking. Even though there was an intro and ending, I felt that I was missing something (maybe there is more in the manual, but that does not count).

While this game does not hold up to great PC shooters such as Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, it is still a very enjoyable console experience.

" Wild Guns" is a nice surprise, when i decided to play it. It was on my list for a long time but i didnt touched it becuase i prejudge it as a generic shoot em up. Boy i was wrong. This game is very different. Firstly the enviroment, the games takes places in the good old west but a steampunk west. You fight badass cowboys as well as robots, huge tanks and jetpack-soldiers. Cool concept, well implemented.

Secondly the controls are kind of unique. You see our hero from behind and you either move or shoot, when projectiles are coming near, you get a very short message to jump away. The hole game is about mastering the move and attack sequences, sounds easy but its hard like **** because so much is going on in the later stages but i never get frustrated, the hole rampage is so colorfull and made with love, that i wanted to stay in the current stages.

weak points are the nearly nonexistent story and the slightly repetitive enemies (but they are all very well designed)

If you like western, if you are no epileptic and if you love mean bosses play this hidden gem!