Jets 'N' Guns Gold

 
Developer: Rake in the Grass
Released: Feb 2014
Hours Played: 7.8
Similar To: Drifting Lands / Reign of Bullets / Steel Rain / Steredenn / Syder Arcade
Rating: 5/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY

Jets 'N' Guns Gold is a simple yet complicated side-scrolling shooter that's set in various locations in outer-space. "Simple" because you shoot almost everything in sight while trying to get to the end of each explosive level; "complicated" because the counter-intuitive loadout screen and choice of weapons therein takes an age to figure out. Let's go with the simple first: the game is essentially a series of side-scrolling missions where you fly from A to B in an effort to reduce hull damage and not get blown up. To do this, equipped with weapons paid for and upgraded earlier, you blast and dodge your way in true old-school style fashion through an assortment of enemies ranging from spaceships, spacemen, mechs and turrets. There is a heat gauge to keep an eye on and apart from the odd health pick-up there are no power-ups.

BALANCE & PACE

JnG is not your usual 2D shooter in that there is no map or level-select screen. The only screen you visit between runs is that loadout screen to buy and upgrade weapons with the cash you picked up. In short, you: (1) equip; (2) upgrade; (3) play the level; (4) repeat. If you beat the level - happy days! If you died and felt this was due to unwieldy or under-powered weapons you sell those weapons for the price you paid for and upgraded them with - and try a new set-up. Then you simply repeat and see how you get on. Oh, and you cannot continue until you beat it! You'll certainly get your fair share of trial and error but if you're happy with your set-up and feel skill isn't the problem (yet still get your arse kicked) then god help you. Personally, I felt the lowest difficulty setting, humourously entitled Too Fat To Die, was suitably pitched to my standard. 

PRESENTATION & DESIGN 

With a slight retro feel, particularly while dragging and dropping those weapons in the inventory and onto the ship, JnG's graphics may not knock you off your feet. However, it has the charm to keep players enthralled and coming back for more to such an extent that it's remembered with fondness since its 2004 release and has become a bit of a cult classic. Shrapnel and large chunks of spaceships will break off and fall down on tiny spacemen below, buildings and structures get destroyed in satisfying explosions and there is great variety in detail and level-design. Developers have also gone for the humourous touch by adding plenty of comical moments in the involved story that keeps it all together and there is a hefty soundtrack to boot. It will even run on that rickety laptop that's as old as the game itself. 
  

PROGRESS SYSTEM

Part of the game's charm, of course, is the absence of a level-select screen or campaign map. Certain purists will no doubt welcome the way you can dive into the game after a few tweaks to the loadout. Others can feel more attached to a game if progress is mapped out via some sort of chart. Even a list of levels with a tick-box would have sufficed to give a more solid feeling of progression. Despite there being a stat-screen accompanying completion of levels, there are no clues to how you are progressing here; you cannot keep track how far into the game you are; how much needs to be completed or even what level you're on! And for me, this has to go down as a flaw. I certainly wouldn't know it has 43 levels if it didn't say this on the Steam store page. Perhaps one way around this would be to pay more attention to its 22 achievements.
 

CONCLUSION

Fortunately, its ropey progress system isn't its defining feature or its crowning glory. Neither is its Mastermind-style code-breaking mini-game that you get to play around with at the loadout screen. Sure, I'd like a score to have some sort of meaning and to feel like I'm progressing in a game but Jets 'N' Guns Gold hasn't gained such a strong following for no reason. Nope, the sheer explosive gameplay and ability to switch weapons between runs to see what works is what puts the game out there. Did I get a kick from switching out my standard weapon for a Radiator Mk.III and promptly storming through the level which had previously given me trouble? Yes... and jolly rewarding it was too. Will this weapon stand me in good stead for the rest of the campaign? No... and that's just the way it should be.