The Digital Foundry video made it sound like one of the overlooked early first-person shooters, which made me go "how have I never heard of this game before?" Of course the reality is not so simple.
Technically, calling it an FPS is correct, but in essence this has more in common with third-person shoot-em-ups like Panzer Dragoon, except instead of moving up and down, you move forward and backward. The amount of traversable space, however, is about the same. Every level is a boss fight, and you're always locked in a tiny room with the boss, who spawns minions. You literally run circles around the boss within that tiny room, trying to dodge projectiles. And while it's relatively easy in the beginning, later levels turn into a bullet hell.
The premise of the game is basically Blade Runner. You're tasked with taking down outlaw androids. Which sounds pretty cool, but it's not like there's much story here. You're just given briefings before every mission and then the final boss has a couple of lines of dialogue.
To me, as an experience, it is more enjoyable than something like Wolf3D, but largely incomparable. Wolfenstein is a game about exploring large maze-like dungeons, with lots of hitscan enemies and a generally more grounded tone (at least early on) that will take you several hours to complete (if you don't get lost in the mazes and go insane). Gun Buster, though unquestionably a very innovative game with amazing graphics for the time and generally an outstanding presentation, being an arcade game, isn't more than a fun little distraction. Something to play for an hour at most, when you're out with friends. It is filled with in-your-face spectacle and good at what it sets out to do. But I would hardly call this game some kind of an overlooked foundational masterpiece that deserves to be mentioned in the same category as Wolf3D or Ultima Underworld.
Technically, calling it an FPS is correct, but in essence this has more in common with third-person shoot-em-ups like Panzer Dragoon, except instead of moving up and down, you move forward and backward. The amount of traversable space, however, is about the same. Every level is a boss fight, and you're always locked in a tiny room with the boss, who spawns minions. You literally run circles around the boss within that tiny room, trying to dodge projectiles. And while it's relatively easy in the beginning, later levels turn into a bullet hell.
The premise of the game is basically Blade Runner. You're tasked with taking down outlaw androids. Which sounds pretty cool, but it's not like there's much story here. You're just given briefings before every mission and then the final boss has a couple of lines of dialogue.
To me, as an experience, it is more enjoyable than something like Wolf3D, but largely incomparable. Wolfenstein is a game about exploring large maze-like dungeons, with lots of hitscan enemies and a generally more grounded tone (at least early on) that will take you several hours to complete (if you don't get lost in the mazes and go insane). Gun Buster, though unquestionably a very innovative game with amazing graphics for the time and generally an outstanding presentation, being an arcade game, isn't more than a fun little distraction. Something to play for an hour at most, when you're out with friends. It is filled with in-your-face spectacle and good at what it sets out to do. But I would hardly call this game some kind of an overlooked foundational masterpiece that deserves to be mentioned in the same category as Wolf3D or Ultima Underworld.
5 Comments
True, but there was still an implication that this is an early FPS game, which it barely is.
In fact, iirc, graphics were only a part of the discussion. There was a lot of discussion of gameplay and how groundbreaking this game was.
I think it could count as an early FPS considering its age, we have to keep in mind that id software's style wasn't popular yet and FPS games hadn't materialized as we know them. Advertisements for DOOM early on would say things like "virtual reality" or "fighting game" because there was no basis for what an FPS really was.
In Gunbuster you play in first person, walk around and aim your gun while dodging your enemies. Cyclones from 1994 had a similar aiming and movement system while being inspired more by Wolfenstein and DOOM.
In Gunbuster you play in first person, walk around and aim your gun while dodging your enemies. Cyclones from 1994 had a similar aiming and movement system while being inspired more by Wolfenstein and DOOM.
That's what I'm saying, it's only an FPS technically. To call it an FPS today, as the genre has evolved into something quite different, is a bit of a stretch.
iv1632
11 months ago