Game:

Cyber-Lip (1990)

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Cyber-Lip was developed by SNK and released in 1990. Before I begin, I think I can say what we were all thinking when we first heard of this title. What is Cyber-Lip? An oral fixation on a man's privates performed by a futuristic street walker? Well, not really!

The story of Cyber-Lip is quite a lengthy and detailed one, so I decided to provide a complete excerpt from the SNK wiki, which can explain everything better than I ever could:

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A.C. 2016. The human population continues to grow, and is on the verge of depleting the Earth's resources. The Federal Government dreams of space exploration and has begun plans for a space colony. At the same time as the construction of the colony, research into universal androids for space work progresses at a rapid pace. An artificial life form is about to be born that will determine the fate of humanity.

A.C. 2020. Humanity has successfully expanded into space, but now violent aliens are standing in their way. In order to put a stop to the escalating fighting, the federal government decides to deploy military androids and activate the supercomputer "Cyber-Lip" to control them. Everyone cheers with joy at the completion of "CO5," a military colony that brings together the best of science.

A.C. 2030. Ten years later, humanity, intoxicated with prosperity, was struck by a terrible tragedy. The androids of "CO5," who had been protecting humanity from the evil clutches of aliens, suddenly rebelled and began slaughtering humans together with the aliens. The federal government announced that the cause was a Cyber-Lip gone out of control. Various distortions of science began to take hold in the worst possible ways.
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Oh no! Cyber-Lip, a supercomputer that's literally in the form of a giant pair of metallic lips, has officially gone insane, er, I mean, INSAIN! What are we going to do?! Well, the president has decided to send two highly trained mercenaries, Rick and Brook, to do battle with the CO5 androids and aliens, and hopefully put a stop to Cyber-Lip's insain rebellion to a much needed end! Although I can't help but think there's something sinister behind all of this...

So Cyber-Lip, being a very early run-and-gun game, albeit being a rather short game overall, is pretty less-than-average. Given that it's one of SNK's earlier titles, it pales in comparison to later games in the genre such as Metal Slug and Shock Troopers. As you shoot through the stages, you can pick up various weapons such as grenades, flamethrowers, wide shots and rocket launchers.

You can freely switch between these weapons (all of which have limited ammo) on the fly, although this can be somewhat of a bane rather than a boon, because the instant you pick up a weapon, you automatically switch to it, but this can get you killed easily since certain guns don't have the best range and direction depending on the moment. You could be firing your normal gun one moment, then be forced to switch to the flamethrower which its properties can catch you off guard, and you have to spend time cycling back to your favored weapon during the heat of battle. You're forced to decide on what gun to switch to, and some are better suited against certain bosses more than others.

During the stages you can enter rooms which you can replenish your ammo, and at the end of each stage you get to choose whether you can ascend or descend in an elevator. If you get a "WARNING" message after making a choice, you'll be forced to go through a sub-level fighting enemies before moving on the actual next level. It seems that the ascend/descend option is random, but I've made save states before choosing and it always seems like no matter what I pick, 95% of the time I'll get the sub-level. It might be predetermined before actually getting on the elevator and not after, I theorize.

So there's not much else to mention on Cyber-Lip. Aside from the the stilted movement (you can't shoot diagonally, only up, down, left and right and you can perform high jumps and slides), forced convenyor belt motion in most stages, and one-hit touch of death like most early games of this era, I wouldn't place it at the top of the list of my favorite run-and-gun shooting games. Nazca's Metal Slug outclasses this by leagues in my opinion.

But I do give it credit for being one of the few games at the time to provide a "I sure as hell didn't see that coming" twist ending. You'd think it'd have warranted a sequel based on that alone, and I think it'd have been interesting to see Rick and Brook try to save the Earth by themselves after being misled to destroy the same supercomputer that was designed to protect the planet. There was a lot of arcade games at that time that could've had a sequel but they were mostly a one-and-done kind of thing.

Well, I'm hitting that character limited, so that's all he wrote. See you next game!