Run 'n Gun games - From Contra to Metal Slug and Mega Man (Turrican is a thing too I guess)

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Imagine someone taking a Newgrounds game from the 2000's with graphics made by someone who just started drawing humans on DeviantArt. That's what this is.... an edgy-as-fuck shooter about women blasting the shit out of everything to stop a terrorist government. All it needs is Lincoln Park music blasting in the background, but instead it has generic rock music.

There's 12 characters, they have their own back story but i don't really know if they have any unique attacks. I've only played one of them so far but i can safely say this.... It's also hard-as-balls. EVERYTHING is out to murder you, and while you have a health bar, it drains really quickly. You have a bajillion weapons to choose from that drop when you shoot barrels and stuff, but some of them really suck, so you wind up only going for specific powered weapons because they are OP.

Also this game came out in 2019 and barely has any reviews on Steam. The reason i know about this is because it was on sale on the Switch eShop for $1.99 at one point (which incidentally is the exact price of the steam version as i type this being 60% off the original price of $4.99)
 
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Toilet Grenade said:
Iron Meat releases in five days. I've played the demo, and I would absolutely recommend it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1157740/Iron_Meat/

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I would rate this "pretty good" overall. 8 or 9 out of 10. The controls and sprite work and overall aesthetics are great. I'm not a fan of some of the "splat" sound effects that sound too cheap but my fundamental complaint would be that the weapon powerups aren't varied enough and don't feel as essential. There's just no super powerful weapon ala the Spread from OG Contra or the Crush from Contra 3 or something like the flamethrower or shotgun from Metal Slug.

It does offer weapon upgrades ala Contra 4 and the machine gun upgrade is just like the one from Contra 4. But a downside is that weapon drops are completely random. And to compound that issue, the guns just aren't that fun to use. I liked the B and upgraded Machine gun the most of all the weapons. But the lack of unique or really fun weapon pick ups does bring this down by at least 1 rating. You're limited to only one weapon upgrade, the upgrade is barely noticeable, and if you manage to grab the same weapon again it just replaces your other weapon with the stock version.

That said, it's a lot of fun. I legit had multiple "OMG, there is so much shit on the screen, wtf am I looking at?" Kind of moments And, this feels really fair... Except for these little pieces of shit:

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That little orange POS loves to spawn randomly and closely to you. And I'd replay stages just to figure out the timing and it was just random. Perhaps because I played on the hardest difficulty?

Not to much to unlock aside from skins which took inspiration from Super Cyborg (another Contra spiritual sequel developed by Russkies). But I'd safely give this an 8 or 9 out of 10. Aside from skins it offers next to no replayability and you could probably beat it in about 2-4 hours at most if you're a Contra vet.
 
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Calandrino said:
G Warrior has potential

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It's very "okay" but it has that "Indie Unity game on Steam with 2 dozen reviews" vibe. What's weird is that right out the gate you can skip right to the final level.

It's overall fine. 7 out of 10. I think the formula is getting stale like 2D Metroidvanias and Rogue-lites. The benefit to there being not that many great Run 'N Gun titles back in the day is that they all stood out and may have played similarly but were radically different in terms of aesthetic and it was interesting to compare U.S. versus Japan game design which is something you don't really see anymore. A modern Jap game might differ from a Western game in having more kawaii bullshit and titty shots depending on how woke the studio is.
 
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CyberLip:

Time to get this meme out of the way.

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With that out of the way. I think the meme is more famous than the game itself. Even though the game is somewhat remembered as being a launch or early title for the Neo-Geo and was part of the assortment of games you'd see on Nick Arcade. The most popular Neo-Geo titles you'd see on the show would be King of the Monsters, Robo Army, and Magician Lord.

But anyway, this is a completely mediocre Contra ripoff and I just wanted to post as an excuse to rant about how emulators are fucking trash now. Every fucking emulator is a POS, barely works, and they've become more convoluted as time has passed. With MAME, you have to download a file or move a file somewhere just to use cheats. And okay, weird but why is it other emulators can do something similar without an extra step? Then, if you want turbo fire you have to do the same exact fucking thing.

And I don't know if Neo-Geo emulation just took a shit while my back was turned or I was just very unlucky but trying to get the fucking modern emulators to work is a pain in the fucking ass. It used to be simple: download the rom, download the bios file, place both in the Roms folder and done. And I did that and every fucking time I get a message that it's not the correct rom. I try another bios file. Same thing. Do it again. Same thing. I downloaded a dozen bios files and every single one had the same issue with MAME. So, I go to use Final Burn Neo and... It doesn't even detect the roms. So, I decide "fuck it' and bite the bullet and reinstall the most horrible pos all-in-one emulator known as Retroarch and it still didn't work... Apparently every single game rom does not work because niggers. I did all of this before finally just downloading a torrent with all the fucking roms and emulators.

As far as blatant Contra knockoffs are concerned then I think the best one is Bay Route (get it?):

 
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Try fightcade. (Yes you can play games other than fighters on it.)
Setup the json files and it will go automatically download a working rom.
I will agree that most emulators have become messy and bloated with hard to understand configurations.
Other than fightcade the best luck I've had is with batocera.
 
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DocAwe said:
Try fightcade. (Yes you can play games other than fighters on it.)
Setup the json files and it will go automatically download a working rom.
I will agree that most emulators have become messy and bloated with hard to understand configurations.
Other than fightcade the best luck I've had is with batocera.
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Fightcade is an okay solution. Problem #1 is that you have to go through every fucking game, favorite it, and then add it to a room/lobby to play not unless you pay through their Patreon to add more rooms. #2 problem is that the turbo fire really fucking sucks and makes Metal Slug unplayable. So now I have to fuck around with something like Xpadder to have turbo input. Which goes back to my original point that has emulation has become dog shit.
 
I remember when you could easily get controllers with turbo fire built-in.
Le-sigh.
 
BrunoMattei said:
you have to go through every fucking game, favorite it, and then add it to a room/lobby to play not unless you pay through their Patreon to add more rooms.
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Once the json downloads the file for you, you don't even have to do all of that. You can open FBNeo by itself and just have the program search for the roms.

Worst case scenario you'd have to manually tell FBNeo where to find the roms, and yea, it's retarded it gives you 20 locations to choose from but here's a cheat sheet:
  • path 20 - Regular arcade roms
  • path 19 - Genesis/Megadrive
  • path 18 - PCEngine
  • path 17 - SGX
  • path 16 - Turbographix16
  • path 15 - CollecoVision
  • path 14 - SG1000
  • path 13 - GameGear
  • path 12 - Sega Master System
  • path 11 - MSX
  • path 10 - Spectrum
  • path 9 - NES HB
  • path 8 - NES (Famicom Disk System)
  • path 7 - NES regular
Every other path is unused AFAIK
 
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TH Strikes Back:


Is this a sequel? Why is it called TH Strikes Back? Who knows? Who cares? Very fun and obscure MAME title that got more attention as of late because despite the fact that the main character is blatantly a ripoff of Goku and it seems jank at first look, it actually plays really well. I would say this is one of the best Run 'N Gun titles on MAME that isn't part of a major franchise like Contra or Metal Slug.
 
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It's like Slug x DBZ x Rambo with a little bit of that Heavy Metal (magazine) aesthetic tossed in.
Interdasting...
 
BrunoMattei said:
CyberLip:

Time to get this meme out of the way.

Cyberlip.PNG


With that out of the way. I think the meme is more famous than the game itself. Even though the game is somewhat remembered as being a launch or early title for the Neo-Geo and was part of the assortment of games you'd see on Nick Arcade. The most popular Neo-Geo titles you'd see on the show would be King of the Monsters, Robo Army, and Magician Lord.
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Cyber Lip isn't generally considered all that great but imo there's not much wrong with it, other than the weapon switching mechanic being pretty fucked up. Which seems like a minor annoyance at first glance but ends up being a nigh-game-ruining PITA, in particular, the way picking up ammo auto-switches to the corresponding gun, which is never what you would want to happen. But it's a pretty neat not-Contra otherwise, especially putting up against the likes of e.g. King of the Monsters, which REALLY sucks, unfortunately.

In other news, Gayforward made pixelshit sidescrollers of Evil Dead and Halloween, and are threatening more to come.

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Calandrino said:
especially putting up against the likes of e.g. King of the Monsters, which REALLY sucks, unfortunately.
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Hey! I liked that one. I played the absolute fuck out of the SNES port and it's more fun with 2 players but it's not to be neglected.
 
BrunoMattei said:
Hey! I liked that one. I played the absolute fuck out of the SNES port and it's more fun with 2 players but it's not to be neglected.
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I consider it one of the more evil games ever made because mashing the button to win a grapple apparently does nothing whatsoever. Try it with autofire and you will still lose practically every time, from the second or third round on. Same for KotM2. Perhaps some hacker somewhere has picked apart the ROM; I am actually curious if mashing does literally nothing, or just almost nothing. Pure cynical quarter-munching bullshit on a level that, notwithstanding popular perception, you rarely really see in 90s Jap arcade games. I think they fixed that for KotM2 in the SNES/Genesis ports, might be the same for KotM1.

This hero demonstrates the correct technique to win at KotM2 (never use the wrestling moves ever):


Gayfoward actually did KotM correctly with their Godzilla game, back when they were less gay.
 
Calandrino said:
I consider it one of the more evil games ever made because mashing the button to win a grapple apparently does nothing whatsoever
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I had no issue with it. But I suppose that if you grew up playing Wrestling games that it wouldn't feel out of the ordinary to you. I agree with the grappling, sure, but that's how it was back then. It's more amusing that when the opponent tries to pin you it tells you to mash buttons but you will automatically kick out without having to press a single button the first 2-3 times they attempt to pin you. Then after that then you have to mash buttons in which case, turbo-fire exists.

It more annoys me when games force you to use turbo-fire for basic QOL enhancement like NES Batman. NES Batman is a classic masterpiece BUT, the hit-detection on the punch is godawful but using turbo-fire actually makes the punch worth a god damn even though you might still get hit once in a blue moon because of the hit-detection.
 
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