A one-soldier assault through enemy lines, run, jump, aim in eight directions and blast everything between you and the stage-end boss.
Push right through each stage, gunning down shooters, turrets and grenade-throwers. Smash open weapon crates to swap your pistol for a shotgun or heavy machine-gun, free captives along the way for bonus points, and set down a portable shield to soak incoming fire. Reach the end of the stage and beat its boss to advance, carrying your score and lives forward.
Iron Dash revisits Contra, released by Konami in 1987, the run-and-gun that set the template for the genre — a side-scrolling advance, a co-operative second player, and weapon pickups scattered along the way.
Its reputation rests on two things. The spread gun is so much better than the default that losing it is the real punishment for a mistake, and since you drop it when you are hit, a single careless moment undoes several minutes of progress. And it is hard in a way that made the thirty-life cheat code famous enough to outlive the game, which tells you most of what you need to know about how many players finished it honestly.
Iron Dash is an original, free browser game in the run-and-gun side-scroller tradition, adding deployable cover and weapon pickups to the classic blast-through-the-stage loop. No download required.