Space Gun is a 1990 Rail Shooter arcade game by Taito, inspired by the 1986 film Aliens (the game was originally going to be a Dummied Out tie-in to the film). While it is rather standard fare, it features a (pre-Time Crisis) foot pedal that allows the player to back away, (supposedly) keeping the enemies from overwhelming them. It also has shooting limbs of aliens as one of the core gameplay mechanic, 18 years before Dead Space popularized the gameplay mechanic.
The game is set in a fictional future, in the year 2039, where humans have begun deep space exploration. A distress call is transmitted from a crippled ship near an alien planet. The game's protagonist, a special soldier, responds to the call. Upon boarding the ship, the soldier discovers it has been overrun by hostile aliens. The aliens have captured the human crew for an unknown purpose. The story has sections that take place aboard the spacecraft and on the planet's surface. The protagonist's overall goal is to rescue as many human hostages as possible, eliminate the alien threat, and escape the spacecraft.
Space Gun provides examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: The players assault rifle comes equipped with an underslung grenade launcher, which can be loaded with ammo pickups including incendiary (BURN), cryonic (FREEZE), concussion (EXPLOSION), and fragmentation (BLADE) shells.
- All Webbed Up: Some hostages are glued to the walls.
- And the Adventure Continues: The final level ends with the narration stating "The War had just started" and that humanity will unite and fight against the invaders. Then cue credits.
- Backing Away Slowly: A gameplay mechanic. Stepping on the foot pedal causes you to back away from the oncoming horde of baddies.
- Body Horror: The "unknown purpose" the aliens capture the colonists for is reproduction, which they do by converting a person into another alien somehow.
- Cognizant Limbs: Some enemies need to have their limbs shot off. Most enemies can, for the hell of it.
- Concussion Frags: Averted. Concussion grenades are different from frag grenades (called "blade grenades," which explode into a flurry of razor blades instead of boring old shrapnel).
- Expy: For once, it's not the enemies that are ripped off from Aliens. The players gun is very similar to the M41A Pulse Rifle, having a four-round pump-action Grenade Launcher.
- Flying Saucer: The boss of Level 3.
- Have a Nice Death: If you die and choose to quit (or die when continuous plays are completely forbidden through the machine's DIP switch settings), you'll be presented with an alien holding your lifeless body (and your partner's remains left behind).You received a fatal wound.
- High-Pressure Blood: Shoot off the arms of the Final Boss and the resulting stumps will bleed profusely.
- Ice Breaker: After freezing enemies with the freeze bomb, you can shatter them.
- It's a Wonderful Failure: In the Final Boss battle, if you end up destroying the cockpit of your shuttle, you'll get a cutscene of the base exploding with ominous music playing along with the message, "Oh no! Something went wrong! The space shuttle was destroyed! Should we give ourselves up?"
- King Mook: Stage 4's boss is a blue boss version of the manta ray enemies from Stage 3.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Defeated aliens explode into blood.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The Aliens have four arms.
- Non-Standard Game Over: If you fail to save enough hostages in some missions, you'll get a cutscene showing the two soldiers lamenting a dead hostage saying that the entire mission was a failure, causing the entire operation to be aborted. Exaggerated in that your game will be over with no possibility to use continuous plays for restarting any missions you failed in this fashion!The plan of operation has failed, sacrificing the lives of many people...
- Personal Space Invader: One enemy is a swarm of limpet-like creatures that jump onto and bite the player character's face.
- Post-Defeat Explosion Chain: Turrets explode a few times when gunned down. Defeated bosses repeatedly explode into blood.
- Recurring Boss: Stage 5's boss also becomes the final boss.
- Secondary Fire: The players light gun has a pump-action grenade launcher (Bifurcated Weapon) which can itself be loaded with Alternate Ammo.
- Sentry Gun: One enemy is a drop-down security camera/machine gun turret combo.
- There Was a Door: The aliens can rip through walls suddenly.
- Xenomorph Xerox: It only appears on an advertising flyer for the game. The aliens are green with exposed purple musculature in their thighs, two-toed feet, three purple, glassy eyes, four arms, insectoid mouthparts, and a long tail. They still have a Captain Ersatz of the Face Hugger though. Didn't stop some reviewers from saying they look "like the aliens out of Aliens."
