Lucky & Wild - Arcade (1993)
1I would have appreciated it more if they just leaned on bootleg Kurt Russel and Sylvester Stallone more because it's not exactly hiding its influence. No one cares when you ripoff for a video game, so just do it well.
The gameplay, though, speaks for itself. It's an adrenaline fueled romp that pretty much requires a buddy cop to join you. In fact, I'm sure that the game promoted many random pairings in the arcade just so there was a chance to have the full experience. That's awesome and I wish there were more of that in the arcades. It's a unique experience and I remember it well, although the arcades were usually empty when I came across this. I never had a player 2. Fortunately, you can play by yourself but it's just not the same.
You have a few ways of playing it and you'd be surprised how much depth that provides. One player focusing on driving allows P2 to take both light guns and blast away. You can also have one player drive and use a single gun to spray around while P2 takes a single gun. This offers a slightly different experience and each have benefits, and I'd love to see this explored in a bigger game. P2 using 2 guns promotes less accuracy and just a lot of randomly focused firepower, but P1 can focus on driving and avoiding damage from the environment or projectiles. Having one player being less precise on the driving still avoids most damage and their spraying and praying can help clear a lot of the general stuff on screen while P2 takes out specific targets like grenades or gunners. It's really neat and the better the buddy you have, the more you feel like a true action couple.