Tin Star, a six gun-armed sheriff with Mo Crash as his sidekick and Aluminum as his horse, tries to save the town of East Driftwood from an overthrow by the criminal Bad Oil Gang. Led by Black Bart, its members include four Johnson brothers, Tiny, Bugsy, Lucky, and the Kid; and two Oil brothers, Snake and Crude. Bad Oil members have different strengths and incapacities, such as Snake Oil being fast with the gun but having poor aim, and Tiny Johnson being the opposite.
Tin Star is an arcade-style shoot ’em up game. It is compatible with the standard Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) controller, the Super Scope, and the SNES Mouse, and is the first SNES game to be playable with all controllers. From Monday to Sunday, each day consists of shooting practice with a jug, action stages, and a fast draw with a Bad Oil Gang member. The game has 31 levels, unusual for a shoot ’em up game at the time.
Though all sequences involve the player controlling the gun reticle on screen, they differ in gameplay style, featuring side-scrolling stages in the third-person and first-person sequences similar to Lethal Enforcers. The third-person segments take place on rides, stampedes, and in town, and the first-person levels are located in jails, banks, and saloons. Tin Star fights the Bad Oil Gang involved in various activities, such as robberies of trains and banks, prison breaks, and shootouts.