Metal Slug with Gondolas? : Gunforce ‘Strike Mission’ | ガンフォース | Irem/Tamtex/BITS | SHVC-GU

Posted by Christopher Price on August 15, 2010 · Leave a Comment

From the people that brought you R-Type – and…well, nothing else really. Irem never really lived up to the legacy of R-Type with any other franchises. But considering they brought us the Geiger-esque Prawn boss of the Bydo Empire, I think they can be forgiven.

It took me ages to get hold of Gunforce. It never really announced itself to me back in 1992; in fact the only sign that it ever existed was a very blurry picture in an old issue of Super Play magazine, reporting from the 1993 ECTS when it was being ported to the US SNES. Obviously, as with all Nintendo of America artworking, they butchered the fine Japanese artwork in favour of airbrushed sub-Go-Bots imagery :

Nasty nasty. Maybe a blueprint for Futurama?

Anyways, Gunforce 2 appeared in the arcades in 1994 – what I didn’t realise is that the Gunforce team went on to develop the awesome submarine shooter ‘In The Hunt’ (which you can get on the PS1), and subsequently started off the Metal Slug series. You can see the visual similarities (especially with GF2) – so much so that diehard MS fans apparently refer to GF2 as a spiritual Metal Slug Zero (Wikipedia there – can some Sluggers out there confirm this for me?). Seems the same sound team went on to work on the awesome Undercover Cops, subsequently arcaded and then flipped onto the SNES.

Can you see the Metal Slug yet?

I mean, its practically Bad Company 2 right?

Anyways, when I got my copy of Gunforce, some Euro retailer had stuck a Francais translation of the game on the reverse of the manual – and a little A4 insert. Insert is good, but if you’re going to stick some shit on the reverse of the manual, how about do it properly? Like, with low water content glue? SO IT DOESN’T WARP IT UP LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER?

Lacklustre French translation of the Gunforce manual.

GCSE level French, yo.

(I don’t think I’ve been so angry as when I worked in Gamestation and my boss used to cut off the hangar tags of Megadrive boxes)

But anyways, glad it had it, played it – fun? Yeah, pretty good fun. I mean, its not Contra 3. Especially now its really showing its age, but in the grand scheme of things, this surely set the scene for the Slug series, and purely based on that, it deserves recognition, respect and just a little bit of love.

Need any more convincing? Just check out the fantastic Japanese artwork, and brilliant ‘Engrish‘ titles that just scream ‘meme‘ – if there was any justice in the world.

HIGHLIGHTS

P6 “JUMP & RIDE ON”
P9/10 “COMBAT VEHICLES” including
- HERICOPER
- BATTERY
- POWER ROADER (a what??)
- GONDOLA (come on. I mean, what other shoot ’em gives you a gondola)
P12 Shamelessly featuring the cover logo prominently mid-copy
P15 – END : The baddest heavy unit suits this side of Appleseed, topped off with a “DESTROY THEM ALL”