Flame Gunner (Arcade)

What if you combine Sega's Virtua Cop with TAD's Cabal and add few elements of Beat em Up game on the mix? You will get GAPS' Flame Gunner (1999). 

We off to good start. The Title screen looks very radical, don't you agree? Before this final phase, the title comes out from explosion or fire so the "flame" word is quite related. As for "gunner", well everyone in this game carries gun except -spoiler!- hostages.   

 

"So what's the story?" The attraction mode gives us vague hint about it. There's some console scripts in top-left corner and "GUNSHOOTING" word on larger font in the center. Suddenly, a bloke in dark cloth appears on center surrounded himself by cross. You can guess that he's the mastermind behinds the crisis.

 

Then there's flash of a handgun and 3 bullet hole on the wall. There's also appearance of the trio protagonist doing flashy pose and shooting. Finally, they stare at that massive structure, the camera pans really fast to the top and the title appears. Do you get the story? If your guess is terrorist group take over some vital facility for their grander scheme and only 3 heroes (who are most likely top special force operatives) are up to the task to stop terrorist, you're right. Probably. 

 

Here's the protagonists on character selection screen (from left to right): Kai, Tiala, and Falcon. They're the usual trio of: the speedster, the average, and the slow-yet-powerful one. I thought the lass Tiala is the speedster because i have seen many female protagonist has trait of speedy or agile like Tara from Legend but that's not the case. It's quite surprising that she's the average character. It's Kai is the speedy ones. For this playthrough, i will use Falcon because i like to deal big damage and i tend to ignore movement speed. I can't choose different character even after wasting a credit but i will give the summary of the remaining 2 later after finishing the game.  

 

Here's the gameplay. You point your gun to enemy, shoot them until dead, and you have to avoid getting shot yourself. The control is as follows: joystick to move and aim your gun, 1st button to shoot, 2nd button to dodge, and 3rd button to use the limited explosive weapon that varies between character. You can hold the shoot button to lock you aim while auto-fire. Everyone has rapid shoot but i think Falcon has the slowest rate of fire. However he still get the biggest damage per hit with his gun. There's lock on assist if you manage to aim your gun close enough to enemy and if you hold the shoot button while the targeting assist appears, you will lock on to that specific enemies and you can walk to any direction while still focus on them. This is lock-on strafing is handy to fight more durable enemies. You can run by double-tapping the joystick but you can't aim anyone while running.

 

There's cutscene where that bloke with rocket launcher sneak a rocket to my back but i dodge it just in time and it hits the rocket shuttle statue instead and causes it to fall thus making the playfield narrower like this. Sometime enemies drop first aid box, explosive ammo, or weapon upon demise. First aid box is definitely health refill and explosive ammo to refill your limited explosive weapon. But i have no idea what weapon drop does. It's the same weapon as the player's so what the purpose. Maybe it boost your firepower.    

 

You can choose 2 or 3 options routes between level along with some good polygonal map of the site and player's perspective in current location. Some missions are just the usual gauntlet, and some other provide you with some quirk. I don't think "player(')s eye" on top-left corner is suitable term. "Player's cam(era)" seems more like it.   

 

In this Breakthrough mission, i have to stand on this platform until it reaches that exit while defend myself from enemies on either side. The thing is this platform moves really slow and since it's small  you can't move much to avoid enemy's aim. The most viable defense method in this case: shoot them first before they shoot you. Good thing is they're flinched if they get shot and they can be knocked away, even. Furthermore you can juggle them while they're defenseless in air.

 

"Block their route of weapon supply!" sounds important and badblood. So i go with that.

 

"Destroy commodities" it said but don't worry they're not farm product or other important daily goods. They're commodities of terrorism such as volatile barrels, giant warheads, or crate of explosives. They're on 3 conveyor belts: on foreground, background, and left corner. Of course, the terrorists against the idea of you destroy their assets thus they will appear to attack you once in a while. You have to destroy at least 13 "commodities" within allotted time or you have to try again and spend another credit. 

 

Engineer_negativevocalization03.wav. I tried to focus on the target but the terrorists interrupt me often. I success on 3rd attempt. All i need to do to prevail is: dodge more often. That's all.

Yeah, sure. I reckon i can distrurb their information network. No big deal.

 

Here's how the enemies work: They move around. When they stop, they start to aim at you and their laser sight appears. Then they take their sweet time to actually pull the trigger. You can move out of their targeting sight because it locks on one point where you presumably were. Needles to say that on later level the enemies take aim and shoot faster than before.

 

I take it back. I don't have what it takes to distrurb enemy's network but i almost got it. See the Rest Lest counter? There's only 2 enemies left. The scrolling tip knows about " Good offense is the best defense" phrase, it seems.

 

Did you saw the green arrows on right bottom corner on the battlefield? It means you can go right to other section of this level so you can have better aim on other enemies.

 

I go with protect the hostages because they're so hopeless that they can't help themselves. Someone has to do it.

 

As you expect from hostages in games, they're annoying and noisy. They shout "Help!" pretty often and i miss "Don't shoot!" cry but that's just me. In any light gun/rail gun shooter game, the villains are fixated to kill the players and ignoring their hostages that move around while waving their hand at the players. But here, the terrorist have sadistic tendency to take potshot at the running hostages sometime! Maybe they have reasonable idea to punish their hostages to run away. They're evil terrorist after all. You can see one of the hostages spin around in mid-air on right corner after blown away from the terrorist...or it was me? I don't remember the detail in this moment but i admit i shot the hostages quite a lot thanks to them not able to dodge roll or anything to defend themselves besides running slowly while crying. But thankfully, i met the quota within the time limit.     

 

Next is "Hinder Hider their destruction work!". This also looks important. Soldier_go01.wav

 

My mission here: to prevent any terrorist (usually in orange jumpsuit) who dare to fiddle with that panel in right corner. It's maybe against your intuition but you mustn't let the progress counter reaches 100%. The counter is terrorist's progress to detonate those bombs, you see. Shoots the bomb operators right in their back also kill their comrades because if you don't they will shoot you, obviously.

 

You can also use your limited explosive to blow their butt out. That's also viable strategy. Besides having the maximum firepower, Falcon also carries (very) high-explosive grenade to take enemies at once. Falcon do shorter dash while throwing grenade thus adding the defensive value to the grenade throwing move.

 

Data collecting, huh? Is it puzzle mini game? I don't think our heroes are up to task unless some gun shooting involved.   

 

Turn out, this mission is boss battle. No data collecting is seen here, thankfully. The lady in blue suit likes to jump around and occasionally shoot at me with submachine gun. While the lady in red suit like to spray fire with her flamethrower. She's the real flame gunner or Pyro like i used to be. Overall, this boss battle is challenging and enjoyable.

 

I reckon this mission is the opposite of hostage rescue. Thus it's easier mission, maybe.

It's indeed the opposite of hostage rescue but it's more difficulty. The terrorist appears relentlessly and they pull the trigger really fast now. Remember when i say you can juggle enemies? Well, they can do the same to you. So what happens to me is: they juggle me and when they're done doing so, they hastily run into those cargo planes while i take time to get up. If i try to dodge their shooting more often, they take that opportunity to get into cargo planes. Either way, i'm suppressed. Even if i manage to throw grenade at them, i will get shot from behind. I waste 3-4 credits for this mission. This mission seems impossible to finish in solo play.Also i fed up with announcer says "Escape" everytime the terrorist get in the plane.

 

Thus i decide to switch to another mission with the usual skirmish objective: kill all enemies until the counter on right corner empty. But this mission stills hard thank to the aforementioned fast trigger of the enemy's also the playfield is quite narrow especially when there's furniture on the center of this room. I also notice another drawback  of being Falcon. He's slow when he turns his gun around although it seems reasonable as he carries sniper rifle that somehow has rapid fire ability.    

 

I'm curious what dorry car is. So i go with that mission.

 

Hey, where's the car? I have been tricked! The enemies on later level are better varied than before. For example that Arnold Schwarzenegger like on right that carries Gatling Gun. There's also another Pyro, i mean flame thrower guy that looks like the one in Crisis Beat.

 

There's no alternate mission this time as we're about to face off the final boss!

 

There's the boss (who's the bloke on the "narration" screen) on bottom right corner and he's very above my level. He apparently goes to the same tailor as Albert Whesker. He not only mock me from up there, he also can shoot me with anti-tank rifle and spray some explosive bullets with his rocket launcher. His attack pattern is easy to deal with.

 

But of course, the battle doesn't go that easy. In other action game like Final Fight, reinforcement of thugs will assist Belger the final boss. But this guy think one step ahead from the boss of Mad Gear gang. He doesn't trust manpower to back himself up, instead he relies on 6 battery cannon that surround me from beginning! Although the hint tells you to destroy them before take on the boss, you shouldn't heed it. Why? Because they take lots of punishment before going down and even if you success on destroying one of them. It will be revived after some time and there's still more of them shooting at you. So it's not worth it to try destroy them. Sure, they shoot at you fast but the really brief moment of the turret cease to function momentarily doesn't contribute to your fighting chance that much.

 

So my advice is dodge, a lot! That turret with shorting out effect means it will inactive for a while after taken some beating. Grenade obviously useless for the boss because he is up there but it's useful to make those turrets knocked out for a while. Aiming at the boss is tricky. It will be lot easier if you position yourself to the center of the arena but you will be sitting duck for those turrets. Therefore once you "click" on the boss, you should move to right-bottom corner as soon as possible because that area is the safest in my opinion.

 

Once his health bar is depleted, he falls to the base of shuttle launcher and explodes. What makes me laugh is the cry when he falls. It's "Waaaaah!" that sounds like he's astonished that i can defeat him, more than someone fall down to his death.

 

Then credit rolls and the heroes are about to be extracted from the site. The end.

I get Lieutenant rank for my effort. Demoman_mvm_loot_common03.wav

I don't think i like the fact that Falcon's head and hair looks like one seamless cell shade albeit with different color. No, the shiny effect won't change my opinion.

In case you wonder, QUICK SHOT is term for quickly shooting the enemies down before they pull the trigger.

 

There's also top scoring on each level on the game. This feature may boost replayability if you want to tackle every score on each level. Each character start on different level.

For example, Kai enters the site from the main entrance where there's the name of the project in this place. It's Cordelia Space Shuttle. After defeating all the men, he has showdown with an APC! As you expect from early boss in early level, it's not hard to defeat although it's very durable. I mean that's what you expect from fighting an armored vehicle with only handgun! Move on to the personalization of each character. Kai is the speedster as i have mentioned before. He moves and turns his gun fast. His dodge move is dodge roll unlike Falcon who can only dash briefly but i don't think it's easy to roll around while carry sniper rifle. Kai has the best mobility and evasive capability at the cost of having the lightest arsenal. His main gun is handgun that inflict weak damage per hit. His explosive weapon is explosive round on his other gun that he keep points up when he doesn't use it. He shoots the explosive round by whipping his handgun! Scout_cheers05.wav  

 

Meanwhile, Tiala the average character has unique explosive weapon: a bomb that can emit lasers! Her dodge method is dash that longer and faster than Falcon's. Her main gun is MP5 submachine gun that has the fastest firing rate. You can't go wrong with playing Talia, as like every average character in games. Her first mission is to blow this fuel tank.

  

GAPS' Flame Gunner (1999) is unique shooting game. You control you characters along with their aim like TAD's Cabal and set in 3D shooter setting like Sega's Virtua Cop with fixed camera. There's hit counter if you're into combo hype. The "juggling enemies" part is fun. The character diversity is quite well designed and they're distinctive among each other. The lock-on feature is relatively wonky but quite functional in practice. On early levels, enemy's aim is unrealistically slow given the enemies are presumably well-trained terrorists but it's good for gentle introduction to the game. On the other hand, on later level enemies aim much faster although realistic but it feels very harsh. I know the arcade game usually have the no-fun difficult level beyond half the game or so but milder difficulty curve will be nice to have. The final boss is hard garbage but on other occasion i can deplete his health bar to 50% in short time without getting hit. The mission variation feels bit lacking but okay. I feel like the heroes need some kind of melee move especially in narrow levels to dispatch the enemies easier and faster. Sadly, the in-game polygonal sprite seems lacking of work and detail while the pre-rendered level is great. There's beautiful transition of changing scene on certain levels. The music is pretty good and funky. The sound effect is average good.

 

In my opinion, Flame Gunner (1999) is a must play arcade shooter game. It offers you a fairly unique experience like you never experienced before in other shooter game. Plus you can enjoy on juggling opponent. But if you're the one who get juggled, it's certainly terrible. But funny experience, nonetheless.