Mr. Driller G is a another entry in Namco's series of arcade puzzle games. As in the previous titles, the main objective is to control a miner character and dig through layers of multi-colored blocks to reach the deeper levels of a shaft and score points. As sections are removed, the whole structure becomes unstable and dangerous. When large pieces of the same color fall on top of each other, they automatically disappear. The miner can be squished by the crumbling stones, or suffocate by lack of oxygen. Air pills and power-ups are found scattered throughout the level, and must be collected to refill the supply, shown as a meter at the right side of the screen. Special brown blocks act as a barrier and have to be drilled several times to break, removing a portion of the remaining air after being destroyed.

The single player game has three modes. In mission mode, the objective is to reach a specific depth and make as many points as possible, with several levels available to play right from the beginning. In scenario mode, cutscenes play between a linear succession of levels, where each shaft has to be completed to move the plot forwards. In time attack mode, the air pills are replaced with clocks that add a few seconds to the time remaining to reach the bottom of the mine.

The normal arcade mode has multiplayer variations that can be played locally with two controllers, where the screen is split vertically in the middle showing two separate mine shafts for each player. In Driller Race, the objective is to reach the deep end of a randomly generated shaft as fast as possible, while in Driller Survival the players try to outlast each other in bottomless mines.

There is an option called Net Driller, that generates passwords to be used on the official site for competitions and global rankings. Support for it was discontinued on January 30th, 2003.