Smoking Gun Steam Charts & Stats

[h1]Smoking Gun Review Build 1.1.0 (Completed it in Hard mode)[/h1] Not quite Gun.Smoke—but still a good top down shooter. This game isn’t a true clone of Gun.Smoke arcade. It plays more like a tactical run-and-gun than a shmup: 1. While both games has the random enemy movement, enemies in Smoking Gun tend to stop and shoot unlike the constant movement of enemies in Gun.Smoke arcade. 2. Also, unlike classic arcade shmups with constant autoscrolling, here the scroll speed adjusts to your movement, so you can take it slow and tactical. If you are an arcade shmup player this might not be your thing as it leans more toward a "euroshmup" style, with features like: 1. HP 2. Stats and weapon which can be bought/upgraded through a shop 3. Limited ammo 4. A weak starting character 5. The focus is more on aiming rather than dodging, especially after max upgrading your health. With frequent health pickups, the game becomes more forgiving as you progress. [h2]Difficulty & Progression:[/h2] Stage 1 can be rough at first due to low health and in certain sections of the stage, some enemies will run further to your back and shoot offscreen. But once you get the hang of it, it becomes manageable. A helpful tip: take your time and just slowly walk, clear enemies or destroy objects before moving forward. Stages 2–7 are very doable once you’ve upgraded your health (which I highly recommend). Stage 8 can be a spike in difficulty depending on your weapon choice—maxing out the rifle makes this stage easy. Shotgun is the hardest to use weapon for me in this stage. Stage 9 is probably the easiest stage of all. Stage 10 is a very tough boss fight. I always spend the most time here in my full playthroughs. To complete this stage, you must first kill the Skinwalker, then hit the altar multiple times before the Skinwalker resurrects. Repeat this process—kill the Skinwalker and shoot the altar—until you've reached the required number of hits on the altar to complete the stage. The revolver is the recommended weapon for shooting the altar, as it has the highest DPS of all weapons. [h2]Some annoyances:[/h2] 1. Readability can be poor especially spotting dynamite enemies, even with the glowing effect. 2. Obstruction of view making it harder where to shoot enemies. 3. You can't upgrade between stages. On my first playthrough, I reached stage 8 unsure if I'd have enough ammo to finish it. I personally would like to have an upgrade option before starting a level and not just when finishing the level. Also having the option to reset upgrades would be nice. 4. Clarity on how to defeat the stage 10 boss. I'm not sure how to defeat the boss here on my first playthrough so I need to even ask the developer if what I'm doing is correct. [h2]Minor nitpicks:[/h2] 1. I tried cheesing stage 2 and 3 by just running to the end of level and skipping enemies. This is very doable if you have max upgrade HP. But this is kind of soft countered because skipping enemies means fewer upgrades, making later stages tougher. 2. All 3 bosses have the same design which can be defeated with the same strategy: a lot of circle strafing. Stage 10 boss is very tough though. Probably the hardest strafing fight I’ve had in a mouse-aiming top-down shooter (I’m not a pro at them, to be fair). [h2]Overall:[/h2] Despite the euroshmup quirks, the core gameplay is solid: dodging enemy projectiles, aiming and timing your shot. It's worth checking out.