Jeremy Parish

NES Works #73: Gun.Smoke (Patreon)

Published:

2020-11-11 14:01:03

Imported:

2024-04

Tags:

capcom nes nes works

Content

This one's coming in hot—so hot I haven't even had time to watch it myself yet, so apologies for any issues you may find! Unfortunately, I've been dealing with a family health crisis for the past week, which culminated in a 24-hour trip to the emergency department Sunday leading to a surgical procedure yesterday. Everything worked out in the end, but as you can probably imagine, I haven't had much time for anything else (and won't until my wife's had a week or two of post-op recovery and can get up and about on her own steam).

Fortunately, everything in this episode except for the packaging photo inserts was complete before things went upside-down, so I can keep the on-time publishing streak going! I know no one would have blamed me if this episode had gone up late, but when things get out of control something you need to cling to what norms you can manage to stay sane, you know? Please enjoy the video—it was a much-needed bit of calm in choppy waters.

Files

Gun.Smoke retrospective: Wild gunmen | NES Works #073

Another Capcom creation this week. It's not quite up there with the company's best work, but you can see their collective spirit in action here—Gun.Smoke hits on a lot of popular Capcom beats all at once. It's a vertically scrolling shooter, themed around American pop culture (in this case, Western movies), whose home port contains a number of embellishments over the coin-op title to make it better suited for the NES. Despite the compromises it suffered in coming home, Gun.Smoke plays well on NES and makes a lasting impression, making it yet another top-flight creation for a valuable NES third party Special thanks to Steve Lin of the Video Game History Foundation for providing a look at the game's alternate packaging! Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! And be sure to check out the Retronauts podcast (http://www.retronauts.com), where I (and many others!) tackle a much wider array of classic gaming topics each week.