When it comes to the genre, Front Line and Wild Western are both sometimes thought to be the first Run ‘n’ Gun games, but there were others that could be counted including Wizard of Wor, Berzerk and of course Robotron 2084. The run ‘n’ gun genre has many forms including the twin stick format, and single screen run ‘n’ gun games and it all becomes a matter of how it plays in general. But something else worth mentioning is that Front Line and Wild Western were both successors of an earlier title.
TAITO released the multi-directional shooter Gun Fight in 1975, which was the first game to have a human character wielding a weapon. However, it cannot be considered a run ‘n’ gun as we understand it, since both Gun Fight, and its sequel Boot Hill were about 1 v 1 fights between gun fighters. A run ‘n’ gun needs to have multiple enemies, so Gun Fight did not create the genre despite laying the groundwork. That being said, there there was another arcade game that took influence from a TAITO arcade game and created magic with it.
In 1977, TAITO released Space Invaders and kicked off the Shoot Em Up genre while becoming the new standard for video games. Its formula became not just the basis for shmups but multiple genres, since in 1979, Nintendo would put a spin on Space Invaders that would change everything. Sheriff took the Space Invaders format and changed the layout and behavior of the enemies and how your character, Mr. Jack, moved. Now your character could walk around the screen shooting at the enemies that were constantly moving around the outer rim, and whom would occasionally breach the barriers and attack directly.
Obviously, this is far different from what we consider a run ‘n’ gun now, but it is in Sheriff that we can see the true genesis of the genre as well as the Twin Stick shooter formula. Whereas, Gun Fight, Boot Hill and Outlaw saw players fight 1 v 1 fights, Sheriff saw you using your gun to take down a number of enemies while moving around the screen. While the controls are archaic by today’s standards, this is what led to games like Robotron 2084 and eventually to Front Line and Wild Western. You would be disappointed if you tried to play the original Sheriff game now due to how aged it is, but Nintendo has not forgotten Mr. Jack.
Nintendo did make a remake inside of the original WarioWare and that remake plays far better and holds up today, although Mr. Jack has been replaced with Wario. Nintendo may not be known for run ‘n’ gun games (although the Sin and Punishment games made for Nintendo by Treasure, do have elements of the genre), but the impact the company had by creating the genre as we know it has been monumental. Mr. Jack has shown up a few times since, including in Super Smash Bros, and maybe one day Nintendo’s first character and the first run ‘n’ gun game can return in a bold way.
Resources used in this article include: Run ‘n’ Gun: A History of On-Foot Shooters by Dave Cook – Bitmap Books
