72. Gun.Smoke

(Arcade/Various Home, Capcom, 1985)
Its Gun.Smoke, not Gunsmoke. See the full stop?
Gun.Smoke is a classic vertically scrolling schmup from the good people at Capcom, I assume they're good, it's not like I've met them so don't hold me to that.
Gun.Smoke follows the adventure of Billy Bob, a bounty hunter with the world's biggest hat as he attempts to "round-up" (murder) a group of hardened criminals who are making the West, indeed, Wild.

Billy Bob walks forward in a automatically scrolling screen, gunning down generic enemies approaching him from all directions or firing at him from buildings and mountain tops. Armed with two guns, Billy can fire to the left, right, straight ahead or a combination of any two directions together, a technique that is to be mastered by players wishing to get anywhere in the game. Unfortunately, his guns appear to suffer some kind of malfunction which means the bullets drop out of the air a few feet out of the barrel, Nice one Billy. Power-ups and a galloping Horse can be picked up along the way to aid our hero in his suicide mission.
After making his way through the landscape, Billy comes up against one of the rootingist, tootingist (Ugh) cowboys in the state, each boss is armed with a trademark weapon and for some reason, even some ninja guy turns up.
I think Gun.Smoke is REALLY hard, I don't know if I just don't have what it takes, but I still haven't finished the game, despite playing it on and off for fifteen years. For me, Gun.Smoke is what I expect of any classic arcade game, it's simple, frantic and a hardcore challenge, the fact I'm still trying to finish it after so many years without either succeeding or giving up is a testament to both the game's difficulty and it's addictiveness.
Every gamer should have a small selection of vintage games that they are die-hard to, occasionally coming back for nostalgic fun and never tiring of it, no matter how many years have passed. For your humble host, Gun.Smoke is undeniably one of those games.

If only I could finish the damn thing.