steel gunner
Steel Gunner is a 1990 first-person mecha shooter arcade video game developed and published by Namco.
Players take control of Garcia and Cliff, a duo of police officers that are part of the Neo Arc police force, as they must use their powerful Gargoyle mecha suits to destroy the STURM terrorist organization, who have taken captive scientists Dr. Ryan and Dr. Ellis to create a world-ending superweapon. Gameplay revolves around using a crosshair to shoot down enemies and avoid harming civilians. It runs on the Namco System 2 Plus arcade hardware.
Steel Gunner is Namco's first light gun video game. The game was produced by Sawano Kazunori, who was previously a designer on games such as Galaxian and King & Balloon. Namco engineer Toyama Shigeki produced the arcade cabinet and light guns, and worked as a planner closely with the development team. The prototype models of the guns were originally depicted as being more futuristic. Namco executives instead decided to use them for Golly! Ghost!, forcing Toyama to design a new version of the guns in two days though having complete fiberglass prototypes of the original designs.
Steel Gunner was well-received by critics for its gameplay, visuals and overall presentation, often being compared to Operation Wolf. A direct sequel, Steel Gunner 2, was released in 1992.
