Steel Gunners 2 Longplay (Arcade) [QHD]

Game Info
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Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
Year of Release: 1991

Game Review & Impressions
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I recently covered Steel Gunner on the channel and found it to be a visually impressive, if overchallenging target shooting experience. What surprised me was that Namco put out sequel the following year, so I figured I'd fire it up and see what could have possibly changed within the space of a year.

Not much, is the answer; the story, setting and plotline are pretty much identical to the original game, with the only real difference being the foot-soldiers you're gunning down are biomechanical, vat-grown hybrids, rather than the robots from the first game. Aside from the fact these enemies die in fountains for red bio-juice, not to mention the occasional appendage flying off in the process, there's little to tell this apart from its predecessor.

My personal take on the original Steel Gunner was it looked great, but the difficulty was far too punishing to be genuinely fun for a solo player. Steel Gunner 2 continues that trend, although I felt it was perhaps a little more generous in the number of missiles handed out as part of the end-of-level resupply sequence. The graphics are still excellent, and the use of multi-layer parallax and gradient-shaded ground layer make this one of the most convincing faux 3D environments using sprite scaling so far, perhaps even being the best of them until the arrival of Sega's Alien 3: The Gun a few years later.

Again, Steel Gunners 2 is probably a lot better as a co-op experience than it is solo, so bear that in mind if you decide to check it out. It looks and sounds great, but you really need to have taken your precognition pills and a course in tactical speed-shooting if you hope to get through this in one piece.

Chapters
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00:00 Attract mode
01:22 Stage 1
03:50 Stage 2
07:15 Stage 3
11:25 Stage 4
16:15 Stage 5
20:07 Stage 6