Gun.Smoke Review (NES) (Retro WedNESday #4)
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: February 1988
It took me four weeks, but Retro WedNESday is finally featuring an NES title.
Harvest Moon 64, WrestleMania 2000, and Waialae Country Club. Three straight N64 games. I’m not apologizing for any of them, but a column with NES in the name probably should visit the NES at some point, and this week we’re doing exactly that with Gun.Smoke, Capcom’s 1988 port of their 1985 arcade shooter.
My dad was always a big Galaga guy. That vertical shoot-em-up format, enemies coming at you from the top of the screen, you dodging and firing your way through waves of them, that was his thing. Growing up around that style of game naturally made it my thing too. So when I eventually discovered Gun.Smoke, it hooked me immediately, even though I came to it well after its original release. It was that same DNA I grew up loving, just with a twist I hadn’t seen before.
Instead of a spaceship blasting aliens, you’re a bounty hunter named Billie Bob working your way through the Wild West taking down outlaws and eventually the Wingate gang, who’ve taken over a town called Hicksville and made everyone’s life miserable. The screen scrolls upward automatically the way these games do, but everything around that mechanic is cowboys and frontier justice instead of sci-fi. It sounds like a simple change on paper, but it completely reframes the experience. There’s something about the Western setting that makes the chaos of a shooter feel grounded in a way that space shooters don’t. You’re not defending the galaxy. You’re cleaning up a town. That specificity works.
The controls take a minute to fully adjust to since the NES only has two buttons versus the arcade’s three, but once you’ve internalized how the diagonal shooting works and how to fire straight ahead, it becomes second nature. The controls hold up well, and so do the graphics and sound. This was an early NES release and it looks and sounds genuinely solid for what it is. The soundtrack especially has that punchy, memorable Capcom quality that their NES work was known for.
What keeps you engaged run to run is the weapon and power-up system. You collect money from fallen enemies and can buy upgrades from vendors scattered through the levels, things like faster shots, a horse for extra protection, and a rifle for extended range. Managing your money between buying weapons and picking up the wanted poster you need to actually face each stage’s boss adds a little strategy to what could have been a purely reflexive experience. You’re making decisions in the middle of chaos, and that’s where the game has more depth than it first appears.
One thing worth clearing up since I made this same assumption myself when I first saw this game. Gun.Smoke has nothing to do with the old Gunsmoke TV show. Same Western setting, similar name, zero connection. The period between “Gun” and “Smoke” in the title is actually there for a reason. Capcom originally named the game with the TV show in mind, hoping the name recognition would help, then had their legal team add that period to sidestep any liability. So the name being evocative of the show was deliberate, but the game is its own thing entirely. When I first saw the cartridge I assumed it was some kind of tie-in, and I was wrong. It didn’t matter once I started playing it, but that’s a fun piece of history either way.
For me this lands as an all-time classic within the genre. It took what I already loved about vertical shooters from watching my dad play Galaga and put it in a setting that felt fresh and different. The gameplay is tight, the progression is satisfying, and it has that replayability that the best arcade-style games always carry. Easy to pick up, rewarding to master.
You can easily find this for an NES emulator, or you can find it on modern consoles as Gan Sumoko as part of the Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium. If you prefer physical, get yourself a Retro Duo from RetroBit, and a physical Gun.Smoke NES cartridge.
Gun.Smoke gets a four out of five: COMMENDABLE.
If you enjoy this one, you might also like to check out my review of Bad News Baseball or Cool Spot, both classics reviewed before Retro WedNESday was a thing. Or click here to check out more game reviews. If you’re in the mood to find a movie to watch, you might be interested in our Ultimate Leelee Sobieski Rewatch review series.
Agree, disagree, or think I got it completely wrong? Say so in the comments or over at the Vortex Effect forums.
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