The arcade in my home town was only there for a few years, but I played some great games during that time. Metal Slug, for example. Though, Metal Slug was just about everywhere around here (as it should be). Alien vs. Predator, of course. One of the weirder games that landed was Lucky & Wild.

It’s hard to miss Lucky & Wild. It was a sit down affair, with a steering wheel and two guns. Driving and shooting. What a great concept.

I’m not sure I ever played it with a second person. For one, it was an expensive proposition. If I recall, even one-player was prohibitively pricey for a pre-teen. For two… Hm, no wait, I think that’s the only reason I never played it with a second person. Anyway, I don’t have to worry about that these days. Now my problem is that no one will sit near me for that long.

WHICH ONE OF YOU IS LUCKY?

Lucky & Wild is modelled after buddy cop movies, which is fun because that’s also what Chase H.Q. (and, by extension, Super Chase: Criminal Termination) is based on. You play as two cops who don’t have to live by the rules, because they’re the protagonists and rules are for all those cops in the background. Lucky (player one) drives and shoots while Wild (player two) just shoots.

Releasing in ‘93, Lucky & Wild is technically a raster racer in the sense that it uses the raster graphical trick that allows for a 3D-looking road a la Pole Position. However, unlike Pole Position or OutRun, there’s no sense of turning, and you can’t really go off the road. You just kind of slide back and forth on the road, more like an on-rails shooter. This is probably because the driver is essentially rubbing their belly and patting their head at the same time. It would be really frustrating if you slot your loonie as player two and player one can’t stay on the fucking road. Most damage can be avoided simply be shooting at whatever’s threatening the car.

Speaking of faking things, the guns aren’t light guns. They’re actually non-centring joysticks, which is similar to how Operation Wolf and Terminator 2: Judgment Day did it. I’m sorry if that ruins some of the magic for you. You can still break out a Sinden nowadays if you have the right setup. I won’t judge.

Anyway, the point of all this is that Lucky & Wild is sort of a mid-point between Outrun-style raster racer and Operation Wolf-style shooting gallery, rather than a combination of them. Cool!

DON’T MISS

While the premise is extremely similar to the Chase H.Q. series (drive until you get to boss car, destroy boss car), It feels distinct. While Chase H.Q. gives the impression that you’re driving to catch up to the criminal’s car, Lucky & Wild feels more like you progress through the level to the point where the boss is. The difference is that you’re racing in Chase H.Q., but you’re simply trying to survive in Lucky & Wild. Because, while the department of Chase H.Q. outfits their officers with indestructible cars, Lucky & Wild’s vehicle is tragically mortal. In fact, every mission invariably opens with criminals riddling the car with bullets and breaking the windshield, to which Lucky exclaims, “Nooo, my car’s trashed!” and Wild vows swift vengeance.

Typically, you’re going to take all your damage from dudes shooting at you from black cars. Occasionally, there’s an obstacle that Lucky has to avoid, and sometimes it’s rockets instead of bullets. Sometimes, you’ll get a timebomb stuck to the hood of your car, and, obviously, the solution is to shoot them off with bullets. Naturally.

The biggest challenge throughout the entire game is the dudes who just have machine guns, because there’s no way to dodge their shots. The driver can avoid grenades and rockets – that’s easily the best part of the game. However, if you don’t kill a dude immediately after he pops out, you’ll take damage. Not a whole lot, but it wears you down. So, player 2 better be on their game.

SWING BY THE PUSSY GARAGE

If you don’t kill a boss fast enough, they get away. You technically don’t have to defeat a single boss aside from the end guy, Big Cigar. However, your score is going to suck, and you’ll have to live with the shame.

If you don’t catch the perp, you also don’t get to repair your car. After a (successful) mission, Lucky and Wild take their car to Pink Cats Garage, which is a cross between your standard car garage and Hooters. The car is tended to by women in tank tops, shorty-shorts, cat ears, and tails.

What makes this scene funnier is the fact that there are three (that I’ve found) levels of success to the garage. If you drive up with your car basically intact (probably because you used a continue during the boss battle), Lucky and Wild will sit there simpering over the women. If it’s a bit beat up, the ladies blow kisses, and the cops blow them back. If your car is trashed, Lucky and Wild step out and get showered in smooches.

But this clearly isn’t sexist because the women are demonstrated to be extremely capable mechanics. They put your car back together after you’ve eaten rockets. Their use of sex appeal probably means that they can charge ridiculous rates to men who have a firm gearshift grip. That’s just smart business.

PLAYING WITH YOUR JOYSTICK

Playing Lucky & Wild these days is a unique challenge. I used a Dualsense controller, with the gun bound to the right stick, and the trigger on the R1 button. It works, and it felt fine. I considered setting up my steering wheel and Sinden, but I wouldn’t be able to hold the gun properly without it being too close to the screen. A flight stick would work alongside a steering wheel, but your best bet would be one without a centring spring. That would give you a more authentic experience.

If you wanted to go all the way, just mount a Nerf gun on your non-centring joystick, then run the game’s calibration to make it accurate.

It’s also worth noting that while both players have individual guns on the arcade cabinet, you can play it with one person driving and the other firing the gun. Cheaper that way.

And I’d normally think it was unlikely that Lucky & Wild would be ported, but then I played Operation Night Strikers, which is a collection of Taito arcade games ported by M2. It contains Operation Wolf, Operation Thunderbolt, Night Striker, and Space Gun, three of which are disguised-joystick-lightgun games, not completely unlike Lucky & Wild. And now I can imagine steering with the left joycon and aiming with the right. Not much of a stretch.

BEHIND THE WHEEL

Hopefully, that happens. If this were a Taito game, I’d say it would be likely, but Namco? Their arcade releases have been coming from Hamster through the Arcade Archives series, which is rad, but I don’t think they’ve done a lightgun game yet. Namco has worked with M2, though, so maybe they’ll do an Operation Night Strikers compilation and bundle it with Steel Gunners or something.

Enough musing about modern ports. If you’re handy with MAME, Lucky & Wild is a pretty good time. It’s worth noting, however, it gets a bit quarter-hungry towards the end, firmly taking a grip on the combination of sunken cost fallacy and the possibility of peer pressure to continue from your co-op partner. Not that we really need to worry about it these days, and it at least provides some room for repeated playthroughs to try and master it. It’s only around 20-minutes long, and it’s so much fun that it doesn’t feel like a drag to play through it repeatedly.

Still, Lucky & Wild is somehow not quite as ridiculous as Super Chase despite its escalation in excessive force and potential for collateral damage. But the idea of combining a lightgun with a driving game is just so terrific. And what a great co-op idea. But, more importantly, it delivers on its potential and then heaps a bit of infectious personality on top.

7/10

This review was conducted using MAME. The author is hoping for a Switch version.