GUN*NAC
I always get excited to try new (well new to me) shoot 'em up games.
It's definitely one of my favorite genres along with side scrolling
platforming games! I instantly knew what
game I wanted to talk about, I don't think it's very well known so it's the
perfect game to give attention to, it's Gun Nac for the Nintendo Entertainment
System (or Famicom in my case).
If you look at the manual included in the game this is our
story. In the very very distant future (I'm
so glad they didn't give an exact date like 1999 or something like that cause
it's kind of awkward once it has passed...), the humans have used up all of the
Earth's resources so many of earth's inhabitants have decided to move to the
new artificial solar system known as IOTA Synthetica. This new "fake"
solar system has been created by the "Galactic Federation", and of
course if a very modern and hip place to be.
Well that is until a mysterious wave of radiation blasts through the new
solar system. From seeing cartoons and
reading comic books we all know what happens when things are exposed to
radiation, it causes inanimate objects to come to life and causes once gentle
animals, like rabbits to become violent and attack the humans residing there. So it is now up to Commander Gun-Nac (kind of
odd name but whatever) to save the IOTA Synthetica solar system from its new
attackers.
You know this game is going to be awesome when the
instruction manual outlines your objectives as
- INFILTRATE all
eight planetary areas.
- ELIMINATE dangerous
objects and life-forms.
- DESTROY all Boss
Monsters.
- Take NO prisoners!
- Show NO mercy!
GRAPHICS 9/10
The graphics in Gun Nac are very good and very unique. You can see a lot of attention has been put
into all the details. I absolutely love
how there is a huge variety of enemies you aren't used to seeing in a shoot em
up game, like flying toasters and angry robotic like rabbits who shoot carrot
missiles at you, the enemies are very quirky and remind me of a crazy Japanese
anime. You definitely won't only see
other alien ships coming at you. The
colors of the characters and the backgrounds are vibrant giving it the look
that you are on an alien planet. The
backgrounds kind of remind me of stuff you would see in The Guardian Legend,
but I feel they are better in Gun Nac than Guardian Legend.
SOUND 8/10
Unfortunately the sound is kind of meh when compared to the
unique graphics you see in the game.
It's definitely not bad just not nearly as unique as I would have
expected given the crazy enemies you see in the game and all the other creative
touches they had added.
GAMEPLAY 9.5/10
When you start the game you have two options, Game Start and
Config.Sys. It's cool how they didn't
just call it Options but made it unique!
In the Config menu you can select 5 different difficulty settings, so no
matter if you are just a noob at playing shooters, or an expert you should find
a difficulty that meets your needs. You
can even set the sprite engine to prioritize speed (less slowdown, but more
flickering) or graphics (more slowdown, less flickering). I don't remember ever seeing something like
this in another game! So it's pretty
awesome. The nice thing is that there is little or no slowdown no matter how
many sprites are on the screen at a time which can be over 20. It doesn't matter which sprite mode you
select this is the case which with shooters you don't come across very often,
there is usually some kind of slowdown.
There's a huge range of weapons you can acquire for your ship, 36! Which is insane, I don't remember the other games having that many different weapons you can use. The weapons are numbered from 1 to 6 and range from our basic bullets to homing bombs to flamethrowers. Every time you grab a weapon chip that is different from the one that you currently have equipped you will switch weapons. If you grab one that is the same as the present weapon you are using your weapon will power up another level. Besides all this you can get ship add-ons, pretty much new wings that will be tacked onto your ship so you will be able to take more hits. If you have a wing and get hit the wing will disappear but if you get hit and don't have one equipped it will be fatal.
REPLAY 9/10
Gun Nac is so unique and different it will definitely have
you coming back for more. In my opinion
it is about as good as Life Force but not so insanely difficult. I love how you
have 5 different difficulty levels so if you master one you can always try the
more difficult one to test yourself. With the huge variety of enemies and
weapons you can spend a lot of time experimenting which weapons work best on
each enemy and what you need to do to get through each stage.
...BOTTOM LINE 9/10
This is a must play game!
Make sure if you don't have it you track it down now! It's teeming with personality and it isn't
your usual shooter, there is so much more going on under the surface that makes
this one of the best shoot ‘em ups you can get for your Nintendo Entertainment
System! I feel it's very underrated and
I'm sad I didn't know it existed until just recently, I could have been
enjoying it since 1990! It is definitely
one of my favorite games on the NES. You
must play it if you love shooters at all! If the music was just a little bit
more unique this would be an almost perfect game!
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