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Shoot off-screen to nostalgia: Gun games = fun games.

H

Horseticuffs

Full werewolf off the buckle
Anyone who has been gaming a while remembers stumbling into some gross arcade on a fine day in their youth. All of their old friends would be there; Hey Mortal Kombat, sup? Street Fighter 2, is that a new outfit? Bad Dudes, you ARE bad enough dudes.

But you probably also remembers those big, clunky cabinets with all the ridiculously guns sticking off of them.

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They were a little bit more money, but always worth the investment. Not that you couldn't get a similar experience at home!

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I still have a tender and sacred place in my heart for these holy relics of gaming's yesteryear. With the rise of motion gaming some companies saw fit to grace us with a revival of the genre a few years back. It's back to the grave now, but we got a whole new generation of glorious gun goodness to enjoy and who knows? With Oculus Rift and Kinect-type technologies out there today perhaps we will see the occasional gem.

Right now I'm working on collecting the Wii gun games slowly but surely. I've only got RE: Darkside Chronicles so far, but I'm expecting House of the Dead: Overkill any day now, and will be ordering Dead Space: Extraction and House of the Dead 2&3 within the week.

I reached out to Destructoid's Jonathan Holmes via Twitter to get his feelings on the sweet science:
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I think he raises a cogent point. These really ARE to First-Person Shooters what Automatic Runners are to the Platforming genre.

So, please Gaf, I implore you to wax nostalgic on this glorious genre of yore, and perhaps discuss where it may go in the future, or if it may just fall by the wayside.
 
the best:

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I'd love one of these in my house one day. One part warioware, one part shooting gallery = all awesome.
 
Virtua Cop, Time Crisis, etc were all fun but what I liked most were the ones where they give you some huge machine gun on a stand. There was that awesome one where you're in a helicopter?

While I don't see many anymore I do still see some of those as a sort of big sit-in setup. You have to find one of those places that will let you play as much as you want for a flat amount.
 
i always went for these at the arcades as a kid.

i especially remember an alien game, that played like the alien one but did not have gigers aliens, but some other.
 
The recent crop of motion or IR cursor based games are nothing compared to the Light Gun greats of old. I still remember grabbing both guns at the local HOTD machine and going for broke. Shame we'll never see these games again in any real form again.
 
Snapshot King said:
The recent crop of motion or IR cursor based games are nothing compared to the Light Gun greats of old. I still remember grabbing both guns at the local HOTD machine and going for broke. Shame we'll never see these games again in any real form again.
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I hear your fears, but people thought the genre was dead before the Wii brought it back. I can imagine new games being made with an aim toward the Oculus Rift. And let's not forget that some enjoyable Gun games have appeared on tablets, such as House of the Dead Overkill: Lost Chapters and a bunch I used to have on iOS before I switched to Android.
 
Is there a confirmed list of all the reticle-less shooters available on the Wii? I'm pretty sure that Ghost Squad, HOTD 2&3, and HOTD: Overkill are all of them, but I sure wouldn't mind being wrong.

also, Ninja Assualt is the hidden gem of the PS2 lightgun library, its Virtua Cop, with ninja, at what point did that not convince you that its good?
 
The wii gave this genre a second chance at life. I had so much fun with them. House of the Dead classic and new, the Resident Evil games and the Dead Space game... Then the Wii was flooded with lots of crap and ultimately went out with a wimper. Fuck the industry.

Anyway, I still have my Desert Eagle Light gun for the PSX with force feedback (lol). I should go excavate that stuff in my basement and have a go at... Time Crisis, was it?
 
time crisis & house of the dead arcade were fantastic.
point blank on psx was indeed great fun, too.
they made a point blank title on ds a few years back but it was very so so.

ahhh, all those years defending my light gun & fighting game prowess on virtua cop and UMK3....good times.
 
HyperZone<3 said:
Is there a confirmed list of all the reticle-less shooters available on the Wii? I'm pretty sure that Ghost Squad, HOTD 2&3, and HOTD: Overkill are all of them, but I sure wouldn't mind being wrong.

also, Ninja Assualt is the hidden gem of the PS2 lightgun library, its Virtua Cop, with ninja, at what point did that not convince you that its good?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gun_games#Wii

I'm lovin' seeing all my people up in this thread!
 
I could 1 credit the original Time Crisis, and Crisis Zone at the arcades.

Light gun games are damn good fun!

It's good that this genre still lives on in arcades, and is continuing to evolve even if progress is rather slow.
 
No LA Machineguns in this thread.... son I am disappoint.

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LA Machine Guns, Gunblade NY, and Crisis Zone...... great moments from my childhood
 
guitarhero said:
Wii, eh? There's a LA Machine Guns/Gunblade NY pack for Wii:

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I mean if we're being technical here, Gunblade NY and LA Machineguns were never light gun games but more positional guns that function like a large joystick. But that doesn't matter really beccause they were awesome :P

Dat force feedback
 
RealityExists said:
the best:

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I'd love one of these in my house one day. One part warioware, one part shooting gallery = all awesome.
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most played game on my psone...
seriously Sony needs to kick developers in to making these games again...
ah the blue light gun... So manly.
always wanted a punk one for player two but only had blues
 
Snapshot King said:
The recent crop of motion or IR cursor based games are nothing compared to the Light Gun greats of old. I still remember grabbing both guns at the local HOTD machine and going for broke. Shame we'll never see these games again in any real form again.
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It may be the nostalgia talking but as someone who grew up playing light gun games, is it me or do the IR games just feel more inaccurate? Aside from the fact that it is easier to aim with a cursor than actually aim down sights, whenever i have played with them in the arcade something just feels...off.
 
The_Sheldon said:
It may be the nostalgia talking but as someone who grew up playing light gun games, is it me or do the IR games just feel more inaccurate? Aside from the fact that it is easier to aim with a cursor than actually aim down sights, whenever i have played with them in the arcade something just feels...off.
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There's a bit of lag difference going from a laser and a CRT to a camera and an HDTV... Though if you were to hop to a CRT I'd imagine you wouldn't be able to feel much of a difference.
 
I can't be the only one who used to put a coin in each player slot for some dual weilding?

Dual uzi's in T2 were especially cool!!

Edit: brofist Snapshot King!
 
ponpo said:
Gunslinger Statos
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This is almost exactly the kind of lightgun game I've wanted, one where the player's character is on screen.

If there's ever another "John Woo Presents" game, this could be a good direction to take it. Movement could be scripted so the player could dual wield.
 
I don't see any Virtua Cop in here.


Also on Wii I would recommend you get Ghost Squad. Excellent game with different paths to unlock and lots of unlockable weapons etc.
 
HUGE lightgun game fan. They cut out every non-action bit from FPS and gets straight to the shooting in interesting set pieces for a 15-30 minutes, no fuss, no muss. It's like all the action set pieces in a James Bond film crammed together.

My personal favorite are the Time Crisis series. I think the pedal/cover system is an absolute brilliant innovation to the standard light-gun game, allowing a far more accurate method of reloading(at least in my experience, sometimes shots don't register off the screen) that allows you to not have to take your gun away from the screen, and helps you defend yourself against attacks. More importantly, the TC series doesn't have that OH GOD I'M A HOSTAGE JUMPING UP IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIREFIGHT DON'T SHOOT ME trick to suck up your lives and make you insert more quarters. They also just very polished games in themselves, with some very addictive scoring systems.

My arcade recently closed where I played Time Crisis 2 at least once a month. Feels bad, man :(
 
Oh, man, Area 51 was my game back in the day. Thinking back on it now, I think I remember shooting out all the windows and barrels more than actually shooting the enemies, though. Gotta get that high accuracy rating at the end, man...
 
Point Blank was probably the greatest arcade lightgun game to every come out. Sad it didn't make it into the OP. It was also THE greatest PS1 lightgun game. It actually wasn't that expensive on EBay. I looked a few years ago and the game was upwards of $100. Now it's less than $20 with shipping.

Do these games work well on LCD displays? I do have an Old CRT I can play it on, but it's pretty small. I read you can use a Multi A/V box or something, but I think that was just to be able to use component with it.
 
Time Crisis!! Especially 2 or 3! And only if the gun has recoil :P My childhood buddy and I spent somuch damn money on those

But didn't they come out with Time Crisis 4 and it's like Time Crisis x Biohazard? I think I played it just last year at a Dave & Busters. If I'm remembering that right, then that one sucked and was lame
 
No Police 24/7 mentions? That game is awesome. People with weak knees and low stamina need not apply!
 
guitarhero said:
Wii, eh? There's a LA Machine Guns/Gunblade NY pack for Wii:

Gunblade-NY-and-LA-Machineguns-Arcade-Pal-Front-Cover-47046.jpg
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Yep. I got this, house of the dead, and ghost squad on the wii.

Om3ga said:
Point Blank was probably the greatest arcade lightgun game to every come out. Sad it didn't make it into the OP. It was also THE greatest PS1 lightgun game. It actually wasn't that expensive on EBay. I looked a few years ago and the game was upwards of $100. Now it's less than $20 with shipping.

Do these games work well on LCD displays? I do have an Old CRT I can play it on, but it's pretty small. I read you can use a Multi A/V box or something, but I think that was just to be able to use component with it.
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The old light guns don't work on modern tvs.
 
I never got the Gunblade/Machine gun Wii release. After experiencing that game at the arcade, with that stupidly huge plastic gun and the platform that rumbles when you shoot and fly around on your hoverbike...playing at home with a Wiimote must feel like such a downgrade
 
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