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Gun.Smoke
PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Capcom
RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1988 (US), Feb. 23rd, 1989 (EU)
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: Arcade, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Famicom Disk System, MSX, ZX81/Spectrum
I’m on my horse, firing away at the Wingate gang. I seem to be handling myself alright, even though they’re stubborn sons of guns that soak up as many bullets as I can give them. Suddenly my horse Winifred starts blinking. Is this the classic NES flicker I’m witnessing or something more sinister?
Bandit Bill, the boss of the first level, shows up and starts firing alongside his gang. One of the stray bullets hits Winifred, and instead of disappearing, she falls to the ground, her lifeless body curled up in a ball. Her corpse then stays in full view for three seconds, all while the gun fight is still happening around me. Do I fight? Do I mourn? I was already committed to wiping the Wingate gang off the face of the Western frontier, but now? They killed Winifred. Now it’s personal.
In Gun.Smoke, you control Billie Bob, a hero from parts unknown who’s come to liberate a gold mining town from the Wingate gang. Your perspective here is top-down, so imagine God looking down on Billie Bob as he deals out carnage in the Old West. The screen scrolls slowly upwards, while red and green clad hoodlums jump from the side and ambush Billie with bullets, bombs, hatchets and more. Billie can shoot sideways, left and right, with the ‘B’ and ‘A’ button respectively, but to shoot dead on in the center, you have to press ‘A’ and ‘B’ at the same time. The latter is awkward, yes, but thankfully, Gun.Smoke’s level layout and enemy placement means you’ll mostly be shooting sideways the entire time.
Your objective is to dispose of all the Wingate bosses across six territories. As you sojourn through these areas, you’ll come across money sacks to give your wallet a boost, rifles which enhance your shooting power, boots that increase your walking speed and red and blue Yashichi icons that give you an extra man and invincibility, respectively.
In addition to the neverending supply of bad dudes that Wingate and co. throw at you, you’ll also encounter townsfolk looking to aid you in your quest. Some sell you additional firearms, like machine guns (very period appropriate) and Mag Num (best spelling in the game), while others sell you additional bullets, horse companions like Winifred that act as bullet sponges, and ‘Wanted’ posters.
The machine gun and magnum revolvers are fantastic and will do an excellent job at clearing the screen in more intense scenarios, including boss battles. Better still? If you die, your special weapons and money don’t disappear. The only things you lose are your weapon strength and walking speed.
The ‘Wanted’ posters are key to progression. One poster is hidden in each level, and unless you find them, the boss will not appear. This means that you’ll have to repeat the level several times and fire at every nook and cranny on the screen to reveal them. Thankfully, if you have enough money, you can just buy one from one of the townsfolk. Just be ready to part with a good chunk of change. They might want you to liberate them from the Wingate gang’s clutches, but they’re not opposed to taking all your hard-earned reward money in the process.
Gun.Smoke plays fast and loose with the Wild West mythos, usually for the better. This is the late 80s, so you better believe ninjas are involved, regardless of their actual presence in Wyoming or California. Magnum revolvers were not invented until the early 20th century, and while the first machine gun came in the late 1880s, it’s unlikely that random cowboys would have had access to them.
All is not sunshine and bullets in Gun.Smoke, however. One of the bosses is a Comanche warrior named Devil Hawk, and in his level, you fight “Indians,” as they are called in the manual. Would we do this today? Of course not (I hope). Was this depiction cringey in 1988? Possibly. I was three years old in 1988, I have no idea. The fact is, Native American skirmishes with white settlers were, unfortunately, very common in this part of the country, in this time period. Does that mean a Japanese company should have recreated this for a children’s video game? Probably not, but they did, and here we are. Anyway, I’m not going to tell you how to feel about this. Me personally, I’m not a fan of this specific level and boss, but I acknowledge that Gun.Smoke was made nearly 40 years ago in a different world. Thankfully if you’re reading this writeup, you’re (likely) an adult with critical thinking skills. Come to your own conclusions.
Gun.Smoke is one of the few, if not only, shooters set in the Old West, and I love it for that. I grew up in the Arizona desert, not far from Tombstone, so I always appreciate seeing the Western setting in video games, old and new. That said, the level design leaves much to be desired, particularly in the middle section of the game. The first level is an Old West town, with dudes shooting from second story windows and busting out of saloon doors; a real hootenanny, to be sure. Levels 2 and 4 are just set in a barren desert, with the occasional cactus and side of a mountain shown for good measure. Level 3 is a dirt path with grass and teepees here and there. Even level 5 with its forest and water portions just seem unrealized. Not until level 6, when you enter Fort Wingate, with its creepy stone buildings and tombstones do you feel like Capcom was really making an effort. I know the point with games like Gun.Smoke is to just shoot everything in sight and who cares about your surroundings, but the first level’s well-crafted town setting really sets a standard that the game fails to match.
I liked Gun.Smoke in my 20s when I first played it, and I still mostly like it at 40. That said, shooting continuously while trying to avoid bullets just isn’t as enjoyable as it used to be. Chalk it up to decreased reflexes, growing older, different tastes in games, etc.
If you like Western settings in games and the occasional button-mashing good time and you’ve never played Gun.Smoke, I do recommend it. The NES version is, sadly, only available on the NES. The arcade version, however, is currently available via Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium on the PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Steam.
In the end, Wingate is dead. The remaining gang members have dispersed for other areas. The town is safe (although they’re still without a sheriff so who knows how long that will be true). The townsfolk provided a hero’s welcome and all the whiskey I could drink; awful kind of them. Most importantly, sweet Winifred, my beautiful stallion, is properly avenged. Now it’s time for the open plains, with only my hangover and firearms for companionship. It’s a lonely life for some, maybe, but as I always say to those who ask, I didn’t choose it. It chose me.
Oh hey, where are the Switch 2 articles?
Oh yeah, I did say I was gonna talk about Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, didn’t I?
Yeaaaaa, I still plan on it. Hopefully sooner than later. Hang tight, team! Life has been busy and tiring. Lord willing I’ll get them out soon.
Thanks for reading about old Capcom NES games with me!
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I always enjoyed this one, both as a rental and for some quick later play. But I'll admit it's been quite a few years since I played it now, and I don't think I ever finished it. It seems like the sort of game that would be more timeless if it had been an SNES title. I'm realizing I never played the arcade version, and I'm putting that on my list to check out.
As for the whole Native/Amerindian thing (I prefer "Amerindian", it's my quirk, but it's an unambiguous term unlike all the alternatives and is standard usage in many contexts):
I'm a few years older than you. In the mid-80s, I still remember singing "One little, two little, three little Indians" at my church preschool. I also remember a school play where we dressed up as braves with bows and arrows and feather headbands. My and my parents' best recollection is that it had something to do with Zechariah 9:13-14 with a bow and arrow metaphor. I've never found any information on it online so it must be something that someone at our church made up.
I don't know. I think the depiction of Amerindians as brave warriors or skilled woodsmen (e.g. in the Boy Scouts) is rather a different thing from minstrel shows, for example, which were mostly just jeering and mocking. There was a lot more respect embedded in it, which is why these depictions survived into the 1980s, when minstrelsy was deservedly long dead. To me, it feels like there's an erasure going on compared to my childhood, when Amerindians were depicted everywhere. Now, in an effort to avoid offense, we just don't talk about them. My kids still have no real idea what they are, when I was well-acquainted by my eldest's age in particular. But I'm not the type to go out of my way to cause offense here.
I will observe that Sunset Riders also had a level like this, but at the end the chief's sister steps in and intervenes to save her brother's life, saying something to the effect that he's not such a bad guy and was only following orders from the Big Bad, and your character spares his life (unlike the other bosses). So maybe that's the difference between 80s sensibilities and 90s sensibilities regarding the topic (at least as brought over from Japan).
I'm genuinely curious what an Old West smart bomb looks like 😂
I never played this, I didn't really get into the NES catalogue of games, but I enjoyed reading your review of it