25 Blood-Soaked Run & Gun Games (From Classic to Modern Titles)
The origin of a genre tends to be among its greatest sources of debate, and Run and Guns (sometimes abbreviated Run ‘n’ gun) is no exception. For the uninitiated, it should be noted that it is a branch of Shoot ’em up, shooting games with a thousand variants linked to the medium since its infancy, when classics like Space Invaders, Galaga or Defender dominated the arcade cabinets.
With the 80s came the rise of action stars like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, something that soon influenced developers and pronounced the turn towards guerrilla Run and Gun. Months after the release of the Rambo film saga, Front Line (Taito, 1982) offered both vertical scrolling shootouts and the possibility of riding tanks. And Capcom’s Commando (1985), although not directly related to the movie of the same name – and the same year – pushed this subgenre even further onto the arcade front, spurring numerous imitators. Perhaps the most successful was Ikari Warriors (1986), created by a novice SNK that took the second part of Rambo as a reference and stood out thanks to the introduction of co-op and the return of tanks.
Movies seduced and it seemed that the appearance of a hunk on the cover generated a lot of money, so several video game companies began to exploit the genre by changing the point of view and taking it to the vertical scrolling plane. Platoon, Predator, Alien and other movie hits had their playable versions in the arcade and computers of the time, all sharing horizontal scroll, finite ammunition and a devilish difficulty.
From this revision of the horizontal run’n’gun we can highlight Sunset Raiders (Konami 1991), Alien Storm (Sega 1990), which interspersed sections of gallery shooter, the fast-paced Gunstar Heroes (Treasure 1993), Rolling Thunder (Namco 1986) and of course Contra (Probotector, Konami 1987). Later, the one that would take the genre to the most popular recognition in 1996: Metal Slug, by the hand of SNK.
While Contra created a new genre within the genre, giving solutions that would lead games like Ninja Gaiden in other directions, Metal Slug included a good handful of elements that made a huge genre great: A huge arsenal of weapons, tremendous enemies, amazing graphics, a thousand effects, black humor, hostages and, when everything seemed perfect, vehicles galore that left the machine gun nests and the poor little MERCS gadgets in nothing.
The genre is so timeless that it continues to persist and evolve to this day. Alien Hominid started off as a Newgrounds flash game, before coming to consoles. The indie sphere has seen titles like Guns, Gore, and Canoli, Blazing Chrome, and Cuphead, among many others.
That all said, going through the entire history of run and gun games, it’s funny that, despite being very violent video games, they are not explicit with the gore. A radical departure from the action movies on which many of these games are based.
But that does not mean that there are exceptions that confirm the rule… you will know them with this video.
In this video you will find:
• Some of the most brutal arcade run and gun ever created
• Information related to each game such as release date, developer company, game genre and system it was released on.
• Official game box arts with a 3D presentation.
• Educative and/or critical comments on the importance of the video game and why you should play it
• Average Lenght of every game
Intro and Outro Music
Aries Beats “Synthwave Dreams 2020” is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license …
Source:
0:00 Intro
0:14 1987 Alien Syndrome (Arcade)
0:39 1988 Bloody Wolf (Arcade)
1:05 1988 NARC (Arcade)
1:30 1989 Last Alert (NEC TurboGrafx-CD)
1:57 1989 SAR: Search and Rescue (Arcade)
2:22 1990 Aliens (Arcade)
2:47 1991 Total Carnage (Arcade)
3:12 1993 Robocop vs Terminator (Sega Genesis)
3:37 1994 True Lies (Super Nintendo)
4:02 1994 TH Strikes Back (Arcade)
4:27 1995 Doom Troopers: Mutant Chronicles (Sega Genesis)
4:52 1995 King of Demons (Super Nintendo)
5:17 1997 Shock Troopers (Arcade)
5:42 1998 Millenium Soldier: Expendable (Dreamcast)
6:07 2000 Metal Slug 3 (Arcade)
6:32 2002 Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project (PC)
6:57 2002 Contra: Shattered Soldier (Playstation 2)
7:22 2012 Shank 2 (PC)
7:47 2015 BroForce (PC)
8:12 2015 Guns, Gore & Cannoli (PC)
8:37 2016 Butcher (PC)
9:03 2017 Redemeer (PC)
9:29 2017 Ruiner (PC)
9:54 2019 Blazing Chrome (PC)
10:20 2019 Valfaris (PC)
10:46 2020 Huntdown (PC)
11:11 Outro
#BITSANDBEATS #runandgun #shootemup
the cyberpunk chick in the intro, which game is that?
Title in Spanish?
Shock Troopers is the best run n gun
25 rest in pieces games
Duke Nukem 2 is thiiii best 🥰
Still no "alien shooter" or "mother russia bleeds"…
50 years from now Metal Slug will still be one of the best examples of amazing 2D pixel art animation
LENGTH
You forgot to mention Mercenary Kings.
Also: Jets n' Guns, whenever you hit a human
Which game did the intro for this video come from?
4:28 looks like donkey Kong Country with different characters
I say where is castlevania:symphony of the night?
2D games will never get old. They're the true definition of a video game.
IS the intro a game
Robocop vs Terminator and True Lies ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Yo forgot the ascent
That metal slug clip looks far more sadistic than anything else on this list. You can see and feel the pain of the enemies dying
Metal Slug 3 was the best in the series.
You missed one, imho…Project Overkill for the Playstation 1 & made by Konami.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUKu9l5tFA0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-rf82e3u1w
One i always remember is TechnoCop
The opening animated scene is from which game?!)
Hotline Miami not being mentioned makes this an incomplete list.
Demon front should've been on the list, that game is underrated.
True Lies was a certified classic
Smash-TV. Old late 80’s 90’s game.
from wich game is the scene in the intro??
Where is my friend pedro ?
Where is Hatred ?
Duke nukem 😁
1:10 why is this character walking like he’s disco dancing his way to a club?
How is Project Overkill (PS1) not on this list?
HuntDown is a beautiful game
For me this is just an adrenaline dump of pure nostalgia, and I love every fucking second of it!
memories come up
Does Synthetik count?
Saw the title anf my first thought was Doom Troopers, but you left out the close in attack where the target of grabber and shot until its bloody pulp.
And what about Hatred or Miami Hot line? dislike…
Te falto Hatred y miami por eso dislike…
Super cool video, can you make one like this for the Nintendo Switch?
Still play Total Carnage from time to time
That intro is cool , Which game is that?
don't forget Zombie Shooter
This would be a terrific game collection on steam 🙂
Yu aw wonna mie noo-moo…what a classic, classic video game line.
Honourable mention for Loaded on PS1
I like how after 50 years, metal slug will still look great and not outdated at all, and you can troll some people to say it's a new indie game and then say it's from 1996
What was the game in the intro?
Good video though you might want to consider adding the Alien Shooter and Zombie Shooter games.
And Take No Prisoners from Raven Software.
Blazing Chrome is a NEW game? Wow, most throwback games tip their hand a little on the whole "not subject to hardware limitations" thing, but that one fooled me. I could've sworn that was an old overlooked arcade shmup.
King of Demons is not really a run and gun shooter as you only get the fun for the first level before you turn into one of many demons.
Mind you, you can go for a bad ending (if I remember correctly) by ignoring all of that and just staying as the dude with the gun (as shown in your clip) for the entire game.
4:24 it's just me or those girls shows their mellons? 😏