The Arcade Graveyard: Ghoulishly We Play

Gunforce: Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island, Gunforce 2

Gunforce: Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island is a ridiculous title for an otherwise fun game.  It's a running shmup, where you take your player Contra-style and run through levels laying waste to dozens of enemies and vehicles, all the while picking up (frequently dropped) power ups like machine guns, flame throwers, and semi-automatic bazookas.  It even has some end of level battles like Contra does.  One thing it does have over Contra is speed.  This game plays pretty fast, which also means I died more often than I'm comfortable to admit.  Each time my player got gunned down, his scream actually felt like this guy was feeling pain, I almost felt sorry for the pixelated bastard.  Another thing it allows you to do is to take over stationary weapons like machine guns, and vehicles like a cart with a machine gun, a truck with a machine gun, even a waiting helicopter with (yes) a machine gun.  This game lives up to its name.  There is gunforce, there is battle, there is fire, and the island isn't a pleasant place to be.  Still, a good game.

Gunforce 2.  Yeah, the sequel to the game with a ridiculous name is simply called Gunforce 2.  Playing this one made me feel I was playing an early version of what would become the series Metal Slug.  There were tons of enemies, ridiculous vehicles, lots of weapons and bonus pick ups, and hostages.  Metal Slug had guys in beards as hostages, Gunforce 2 apparently had a team of cheerleaders kidnapped that need saving.  One of the boss battles had these women manning a machine gun or driving the military jeep for me to catch a ride with.  My player also was armed with two weapons, one in each hand, that added ridiculous amounts of firepower.  I sometimes didn't know what the hell was going on, but this is definitely an action schmup.  Good grief!  If you check out the screens below, on of the shots has some silly mother fucker picking up a missile to throw it at me.  What the hell!?

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