Rusty Gun review

Rusty Gun tells the story of some over-muscled macho old man who will have to step up and become the defender of Earth. Alien invaders decided to make their presence felt on on our planet, but unfortunately, their arrival ruined the old man’s fishing leisure by scaring all the fish away. Without a second thought, the old man grabs his trusty, rusty, rifle and he’s gonna teach the aliens a lesson.

Rusty Gun is a 2D run n’ gun platformer. As the old, you will shoot and jump your way through various levels in order to reach the level’s boss. Each level has their own unique enemies, but further into the game, some early enemies return. Our old hero can jump and slide to overcome platforming sequences and slide under enemies; it’s more useful during boss battles. The protagonist can shoot upward, while climbing ladders and prone on the ground.

Killing bosses rewards players with additional firepower: a spread gun and a grenade launcher type weapon. All projectiles look the same, but the direction will vary and both are pretty much useless. The spreadgun’s projectiles are overly spread; it’s only two bullet projectiles and they are almost shooting vertically. While other one’s projectile goes downward. They do have some usefulness, but you can easily get through the game using the default projectile.

While most levels are pretty straight forward and about going from point A to point B, other levels will be auto scrollers either by car, skateboard or boat. You can slow down by pressing back or forward to go faster in order to avoid traps and enemies. There’s also a tunnel level where you’re lowering down while trying to avoid/shot bats and avoid saws.

The game has an 8-bit pixelated aesthetic. Each level are uniquely designed and overall interesting. Later levels are annoyingly designed because they have to going around activating switches and then backtracking finding the new path unlocked. There’s also a decent enemy variety despite some enemies repeating. THe soundtrack gets more interesting the more you progress through the game. Early tracks are boring rock like tracks, but later one are a bit more interesting. Some soundbytes repeat and some enemies sound like they belch when they shoot their projectiles.

Rusty Gun is a fun, simple and fairly challenging run n’ gun platformer. The overall level design and gameplay variety is interesting enough to avoid repetitiveness, fun and uniquely design boss battles. Despite the useless additional weaponry and some later maze like level, Rusty Gun is a must play, albeit short game, for all fans of the genre.