No-Thrills Package Offering That Offers Fun And Frustration

Gunblade NY and L.A. Machineguns highlight the arcade lightgun experience of their era, fast, chaotic, fun, frustrating, credit-hungry, albeit on a smaller scale and with the visual charm somewhat downgraded.

The “plot” in each game involves stopping robotic terrorists from doing bad things via the good old fashioned method of pumping them with bullets.

Though each game is similar in how you play them, we should check them out separately to see how they do so:

GunBlade NY

Unless you have a love for Sega Saturn/Model 2-esque visuals, its quite hard to not see the visuals as dated. There is a nostalgia charm for those who experienced it in the arcades but without the actual cabinet to distract you, it’s more noticeable to see that the visuals leave a lot to be desired. That said the stages do tend to have some nice visual touches such as the store name.

The audio is quite punchy. The “budda budda” of the bullets, the ricochet noise and hits being register all leave an assault on the sense. The constant warning sound and, at later stages, the lady saying “DAMAGE” can be grating though. This also means the music is drowned out, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (though admittedly the Normal’s first stage has a catchy theme)

Gameplay its fast and frantic and for the first two stages (on Normal. Expert is another matter), its quite exhilarating to swoop high and low just blasting enemies and missiles to avoid damage. However, after that the gloves come off and the game drops all pretences of being fair. Some hits feel unavoidable. Usually due to the chaos of enemies swarming you but at times it does feel like the game doesn’t register you shooting down a missile. And while “Only” Three stages on Normal mission and Four on Expert mission but good luck getting through the latter on one credit. Even normal has the obligatory cheap final boss

L.A. Machineguns

Visually looks much better and less dated. While the graphics are still a product of their time, they’ve held up much better. The busywork of the locations is excellent too, making it feel less like a ghost town that Gunblade NY places did.

For a lightgun game, gameplay feels much more involved then GunBlade NY. You have a combo meter, have to watch out for casualties (though thankfully hitting them only affects your score) and the time limit is against you unlike Gunblade NY, where it was mostly for score.

That said, there is still the cheap factor of getting hit too easily. Stage two onwards is when the hits keep coming unless you have god-like reflexes or another player who is competent.

In fact, it seems easier with two players for both games, being able to cover each other in ways that reduce the danger of losing a life.

The score reflects what is a no-thrills, content light game. Sure you have score mode on Gunblade NY, you can unlock ranks which means unlocking new shot type but really that’s it. The gameplay is solid and this is a nice casual blast if you can pick up for cheap but don’t expect anything other than a quick thrill, one fun and frustrating in equal measures.

Rating: 6/10