The Ultimate Guide to NES Light Guns

this video is sponsored by simplisafe the zapper gun was the most popular accessory on the nintendo entertainment system and may be one of the most iconic video game accessories of all time just looking at the zapper brings back a lot of memories like shooting at virtual ducks on my old wood grain television it's had a significant impact on pop culture as well i can't tell you how many times i've seen duck hunt dog t-shirts or watched youtubers pretending to kill things with a zapper nintendo hasn't forgotten about the zapper either you can unlock the gun in splatoon or play as the duck hunt dog in super smash brothers the zapper is an essential part of the history of the nintendo entertainment system but do you know how it works or did you know that other companies made light guns for the system as well including a freaking submachine gun strap yourselves in because in this video i'll be covering everything this is the ultimate guide to nes light guns and now let's begin with a history lesson believe it or not the technology inside the zapper can be traced back to the 1930s in 1934 charles griffith of tulsa oklahoma filed a patent for an invention he called marksmanship practicing means griffith put a small light bulb inside of a replica gun when he pulled the trigger the gun emitted a flash of light through a lens at the end of the barrel on the target was a phototube commonly called an electric eye at the time this electric eye could take that light and generate electricity this electricity could light a bulb or make a noise to signify a hit griffith got his patent approved in july of 1935. that same year the railite rifle range company came out with the railite rifle range the technology inside was based on griffith's patent players had to shoot a moving duck inside a beautiful wood veneer cabinet the railite rifle range is considered the very first light gun game it was licensed to and manufactured by seberg a major coin-op company seberg sold the game for around four hundred dollars adjusted for inflation that's about eight thousand dollars today seberg was very proud of this new game and even threatened litigation in their advertisements for anyone who tried to copy it seaberg's rail light rifle range was a hit and the company soon put out variations of the game like chicken sam and shoot the bear arcades advertised the light gun games as a way to teach the whole family how to shoot safely the popularity of light gun games peaked in the 1940s by the 1950s arcades preferred gun games with alternative technologies that took up less space let's fast forward to 1970. at the time a japanese electronics company sharp sold photoconductive cells an evolution of the phototube these were much smaller and were in various devices like clock radios lamps street lights and more on a routine sales call sharp salesman masayuki uemura met with an engineer at nintendo gunpei yokoi yukoi had a philosophy known as lateral thinking with withered technology taking standard cheap components and finding new ways to use them so when yukoi saw the photo conductive cells he thought of all the possibilities yukoi hired uemura away from sharp and together they came up with the nintendo beam gun toys these toys were very similar to the old rail light games when you pull the trigger on the toy gun it flashes a light inside the target was a light sensitive cell when it detected the light it could show a hit in various ways think of it like an on off switch the cell sees the light a switch turns on and something happens nintendo sold the gun and various targets separately but you could also buy them together in packages there were two different kinds of guns a revolver and a rifle there were also all kinds of targets bottles a lion wildlife scenes and more the beam gun toys were a hit and nintendo ended up selling more than one million of them but uemura and yokoi found even more ways to use the light-sensitive cells in 1973 nintendo bought old bowling alleys and turned them into laser clay shooting ranges an overhead projector showed targets on a wall when users fired their guns mirrors tracked the light and detected hits switching the projector image to a destroyed target nintendo's laser clay shooting system was initially very popular but a worldwide oil crisis in 1973 tanked japan's economy and nintendo had to close many of its laser clay shooting ranges however the company kept working with light gun technology they made a mini laser clay system which could fit into arcades in 1974 nintendo released wild gunman which used light gun technology with film making it the first full motion video game in 1976 nintendo came out with duck hunt essentially an at-home version of the laser clay shooting range but with ducks so by now you might be wondering when are we going to get to the video games let's backtrack a little bit in 1971 magnavox acquired the rights to ralph baer's brown box prototype this became the magnavox odyssey the first home video game console one of the games bayer and his team made for the brown box was a light gun game it's totally possible that engineers grew up playing those old rail light arcade games and wanted to replicate that experience at home the problem was magnavox needed to find a manufacturer for this light gun controller but luckily they found nintendo and their beam gun toys it was a very similar concept and nintendo already had a gun mold with the beam gun rifle so magnavox contracted nintendo to manufacture the light gun included with the magnavox shooting gallery it's important to note that nintendo did not invent the video game light gun they simply manufactured it the odyssey's light gun worked in the opposite way of traditional light gun games instead of the gun shooting light at a target it looked for light on the target this meant it was easy to cheat you could shoot at any light source and the game would think you were hitting the target soon other video game companies like coleco made light gun games themselves like the coleco telstar ranger more arcade developers also tried out the technology with games such as atari's quack in 1974 an exedy's crossbow in 1983. in 1984 nintendo was looking to expand the capabilities of their new home video game console the famicom designed by masayuki uemura nintendo planned to release a data recorder and a keyboard for programming on the system but their first accessory was a blast from the past the famicom light gun often called the famicom beam gun nintendo released the famicom light gun on february 18 1984. you could buy the weapon by itself for 3000 yen around 25 or packaged with the game wild gunman and a holster for 8 500 yen around 75 the man behind the famicom light gun was satoru okada an engineer who had been with nintendo since 1969. he had previously worked on the nintendo beam gun toy line okada would later work on other notable products such as the game boy and the super nintendo mouse the famicom light gun looks similar to the revolver from the beam gun toys nintendo modeled the gun after the colt single action revolver an iconic weapon of the american west however the famicom light gun is a double action revolver meaning you don't have to [ __ ] the hammer to fire the gun instead you can just pull the trigger but for dramatic effect you can still [ __ ] the hammer and shoot if you want to be super cool you can do what's called fanning holding the trigger and quickly pulling back on the hammer you see this a lot in movies but it's way less accurate the famicom light gun is fantastic it has a nice weight to it it looks cool and it's fun to use unfortunately it's not compatible with the north american version of the famicom the nintendo entertainment system the famicom had built-in controllers so the light gun used the 15-pin port on the front of the system which the nes lacked so without some sort of adapter you can't use it on the nes sadly the famicom light gun didn't take off in japan nintendo only made three games for the light gun in japan wild gunman duck hunt and hogan's alley noted by their purple cartridges but north america proved to be a whole other story here in the united states we love our guns so it was no surprise nintendo decided to bring the light gun over for the north american launch of the nintendo entertainment system in october of 1985. however the famicom light gun did not match the aesthetic of the nintendo entertainment system at all not to mention it looked like an actual gun so nintendo came up with the zapper which looked more like a sci-fi ray gun nintendo included the device in the first retail package for the nes later called the deluxe set it also had robbed the robot in two games gyromite and duck hunt due to the north american video game crash of 1983 nintendo didn't want to market the nes as a video game system so adding the zapper gun and robbed the robot made it seem more like a fun toy and while rob the robot faded into obscurity the zapper was a hit especially paired with duck hunt it was so popular one company even made an attachment for it the quick shot sighting scope i'm missing the base part that attaches to the zapper but you get the idea in 1989 nintendo redesigned the zapper and made it bright orange why did they do that in 1988 the federal government passed new legislation that required toy guns to at a minimum have an unremovable bright orange plug in the barrel senator bob dole sponsored the bill he introduced it after dozens of children were accidentally killed while playing with realistic toy guns some senators wanted to ban toy guns outright but dole appeased the toy manufacturers by only requiring a bright orange plug to show it was just a toy nintendo decided not to take any chances and made the entire zapper gun bright orange and there you have it a brief history of light guns so how does this thing work [Music] the zapper works similarly to the odyssey's light rifle inside the zapper is a shielded photo diode that looks for light however satoru okada the creator of the gun did not want players to cheat by shooting any source of light so he added a fail safe here's how it works when you pull the trigger on the zapper the game first blacks out the screen this was okada's fail safe the photodiode inside the zapper looks for this black screen if the diode detects light it determines the player is not pointing the gun at the screen and the game records a miss but if the diode does see black the screen then flashes a white hitbox over the target for one frame the photo diode now looks for light if it detects light the game registers a hit if there are multiple targets the screen will flash each hitbox separately one after the other known as sequential targeting the photo diode then determines if it hit any of them all of this happens so fast that it's barely noticeable now for years gamers have claimed you can point the zapper at a light bulb and hit the targets every time well let's test it nope it doesn't work remember okada added the black screen failsafe for this very reason he didn't want players to cheat okada even mentions it in his patent another important note is that the zapper will not work on modern televisions due to input lag today's televisions have native resolutions like 1920x1080 the nes has a default resolution of 256x240 so the tv has to scale up the image from the nes to display correctly and processing that signal causes a tiny delay so when you pull the trigger on the zapper it immediately checks for that black screen but the tv is still catching up with what to display so the gun doesn't see the black screen and the game registers a miss if you want to use the zapper you'll have to bring out the old crt television when using the zapper you plug it into the second controller port while the first controller port has a regular controller this allows you to use the controller to navigate the menus then play the game with the zapper however nintendo made their first party zapper games compatible with just a zapper for example you shoot away from the screen to change your menu selection then shoot at the screen to confirm some zapper games required you to use the controller in one hand and the zapper in the other but we'll get to those later as far as functionality what else is there to say this is the classic light gun for the nintendo entertainment system it's iconic but believe it or not it's not the only light gun available for the system several other companies made their own light guns with mixed results so let's take a look at every single one by order of release date but first i'd like to thank simplisafe for sponsoring today's video right now they have a crazy good deal where you can save 40 or more during their holiday sale there's never been a better time to make your home safe so around this time last year there were a series of robberies in our neighborhood so we finally 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or more on your simply safe security system during their holiday sale visit simplysafe.com gaminghistorian to learn more at simplysafe.com slash gaming historian all right let's look at some light guns [Music] the first third party light gun released for the nes was the placo toys video shooter released in 1988 at a retail price of 29.99 but as you can see from the kb toys price sticker they marked it down to just eight dollars yikes that doesn't bode well for its quality placo toys was a company based out of taiwan and they made a lot of cheap toys pleco toys also did some licensed products like star wars keychains and garbage pail kids collectibles anyways the big appeal for the video shooter is that it's wireless up to 15 feet according to the box it uses an infrared receiver that plugs into the controller port the instructions also claim you can use multiple guns with one receiver so call up the boys and tell them to bring their video shooter the video shooter requires four double a batteries and when you pull the trigger a bright red light comes on in the back of the gun to show it's working i like the rich dark blue color of the video shooter and it goes nicely with the red it's a little bigger than the zapper but not by much for aim there is a small hollow sight which is an improvement over the zapper unfortunately that bright red light is directly behind the site which can get irritating but when it comes to functionality this gun is not good the trigger is very spongy it doesn't have that satisfying click sound you get with other light guns but the biggest problem with the video shooter is the wireless functionality you have to set the nes on top of your television for the best results and you have to be at least six feet away and the reason for all these limitations is that the infrared receiver is tiny it is nice that it's wireless you don't have to worry about a cord anymore but with that small receiver it's not like you'll be jumping around from all angles shooting at your television overall i can't recommend the placo toys video shooter there are much better options in late 1988 comerica came out with the video blaster at a retail price of 19.99 comerica was a company based out of canada they were known for their third party controllers the game genie and the aladdin deck enhancer which let you play proprietary cartridge games on your nes it did not do very well check out my video for more information on first glance this gun looks oddly familiar that's because it's literally the famicom light gun it's got the same mold same styrofoam packaging heck even the boxes are just about the same there's only a few differences the video blaster has slightly different colors and it weighs less the famicom light gun had small weights inside to give the gun a better feel comerica probably removed these weights to save money but since it's the same gun mold you can just take the weights from the famicom light gun and put them in the video blaster problem solved now you might be wondering hey that looks like an actual gun how was this sold in the united states well comerica did try to follow the law there's a crudely painted orange tip on the end of the gun but this definitely does not meet the requirements of the toy gun law comerica released the video blaster around the same time congress passed the toy gun law it's possible the video blaster got grandfathered in or maybe comerica got an exception from the secretary of commerce either way if you ever wanted to use a famicom light gun on your nintendo entertainment system this is the easiest way to do it admittedly it's not as nice as the famicom light gun it feels a little cheaper but it's still an excellent light gun [Music] even though the famicom light gun didn't take off in japan that didn't stop another japanese company from making one too this is the bandai hypershot perhaps the coolest looking light gun ever made it was released in japan on february 20th 1989 for 9 800 yen for around 80 the hyper shot also came packaged with its own game space shadow it's the only game to take advantage of the hypershot's unique features this gun is highly detailed it's even got two metal rings if you want to use a sling with it the hypershot also has an almost complete set of controls there's a small joystick behind the magazine a b button in front of the magazine and start select buttons on the side unfortunately there's no a button so yes you can play games like super mario brothers with the hyper shot but you just can't jump dang too bad but by far the most incredible feature of the hyper shot is the body vibration system if you put in four c batteries you'll get force feedback holy cow the hypershot also has a speaker on the back right which can play the game's audio unfortunately these two features only work with space shadow the pack-in game if you use the hyper shot on a regular light gun game like duck hunt it works like any other light gun and not the best either it may look cool but the sights on it aren't great and if you're playing one-handed it's not the most comfortable to use it's got some weight to it especially with batteries inside the hypershot really shines when used with the packing game space shadow but more on that later [Music] it's time for another wireless light gun nexoff's dominator pro beam released in 1989 at a retail price of 39.99 nexsoft was the us subsidiary of the ascii corporation which released a few nes games such as castle quest and star voyager like the video shooter this gun uses an infrared receiver but unlike the video shooter the dominator pro beam is officially licensed and has the nintendo seal of quality nexoff marketed the dominator line as a universal wireless system you could also use their dominator master control wireless joystick with the same infrared receiver the pro beam is bright orange and requires four aaa batteries to operate this gun is much bulkier than a standard zapper but it's still lightweight you can also use it with two hands the pro beam has a comfortable forearm for easier handling there's also a scope on top for easy aiming i felt like a sniper using this thing and unlike the video shooter the dominator pro beam's infrared receiver has a much wider angle so i could be almost anywhere and still get accurate shots the instructions recommend placing the system on top of the television but i used it on the side and it worked just fine i'm genuinely impressed by the pro beam it's comfortable to hold you don't have to worry about cords and i felt like i couldn't miss my shots with the scope what do you know maybe that seal of quality does stand for something [Music] the final light gun is probably the strangest because it's not a gun this is the konami laser scope yes the company that brought you classics such as metal gear in castlevania also made this the laser scope was released in 1990 and retailed for 39.99 it comes in two parts a headset and a scope module you can actually use the headset as headphones it has an auxiliary cord although the sound quality isn't great the headset also has an rca adapter so that you can listen to your nes games through the headset this was one of the selling features of the laser scope so now your mom can make all those important phone calls while you play your games attaching the scope module turns the laser scope into a light gun the end of the module essentially serves as the barrel of the gun there's also a blue targeting display when you power on the nes a laser projected reticle appears on the display which is how you aim on the right side of the headset are a turbo switch and volume control on the left is the microphone to fire the laser scope you have to yell fire into the microphone fire fire [Music] now you don't have to say fire the microphone is looking for any sort of sound the microphone on my laser scope is super weak i practically had it in my mouth so despite how ridiculous i look does the laser scope work yes it does with exceptions if you have a large head like me the laser reticle won't be centered on your targeting display this makes the laser scope awkward to use you can adjust the laser scope to make the reticle more centered but then you look even more ridiculous this issue was a concern from konami during development the video game history foundation recently uncovered some messages between konami and the manufacturer where konami was concerned about people with large heads using the laser scope the manufacturer replied it is suitable for kids but much different to adults especially some big head like thomas hong so thomas if you're watching sorry so yes the laser scope is uncomfortable it's not super accurate and if you have a big head forget about it so out of all these third-party light guns which one comes out on top in a shocking upset i have to go with the dominator pro beam it's wireless it's comfortable and it's incredibly accurate now let's talk about the light gun games in total there were 17 officially licensed light gun compatible games and countless other unlicensed ones it's a testament to the zapper's popularity compare that to something like the power glove which only had two compatible games so let's take a look at some light gun games let's start with the ones that required a light gun [Music] wild gunman is based on nintendo's arcade game from 1974 which is based on their 1972 toy which might be a rip-off of sega's 1969 arcade game gunfight anyway in the game you play a gunslinger in the wild west your goal is to shoot the outlaws before they shoot you the game will signal you to fire and the enemy's eyes will light up too just like the old arcade game as you progress the enemies will get faster and faster you could purchase wild gunman in a set in japan with the light gun and a holster making you look like a true gunslinger but unfortunately north america didn't get a holster so you'll have to settle for putting the zapper in your pocket technically you can just point the gun at the screen and fire but that wouldn't be in the spirit of the game there are three game modes in game a it's you against one outlaw the faster you shoot the more points you get one interesting note is you don't have to actually aim at the outlaw instead the entire screen is a hitbox so as long as you shoot the light gun at the screen you'll score a hit in game b you go up against two outlaws this splits the hitbox in half on the screen so you'll have to aim a little more this time game c is probably my favorite called gang there are five doors on a saloon and outlaws pop out at random you have 15 bullets per round and you've got to shoot all the outlaws to move on it's sort of like whack-a-mole with a light gun wild gunman is a short simple light gun game it's not the most exciting but it works well for what it is [Music] duck hunt needs no introduction it's the most popular light gun game on the nintendo entertainment system probably due to its inclusion in several nes retail packages in the game you are a hunter looking for ducks to shoot of course your trusty dog is there to help pick up your winnings in game a you shoot one duck at a time you only get a few seconds to shoot each one and you have three bullets per duck if you miss the duck flies away and your supposed best friend laughs at you the ducks also have different difficulty levels black ones are the easiest to hit followed by blue and then red ones a small bar at the bottom of the screen shows how many ducks you need to shoot to advance to the next round as you progress the ducks get harder to hit and the number of ducks you must shoot increases game b is exactly the same but now there are two ducks on screen at a time fun fact did you know duck hunt is a two player game another player can control the duck's flight patterns using the d-pad on controller one game c has no ducks at all instead it's clay shooting a nice little throwback to nintendo's old laser clay shooting ranges the rules are the same though two clay pigeons are shot off into the distance the farther away they are the harder they are to hit shoot the required amount at the bottom to pass the round duck hunt is a classic title and an essential game to own with your light gun [Music] hogan's alley is based on an fbi training ground of the same name your goal is to shoot at the gang member targets but avoid the lady professor and the police officer in game a three targets slide on screen with one or two bad guys at the top is a time which tells you how quickly you must react you have to shoot the gang members and avoid the innocent bystanders if you miss 10 times it's game over there's no music just the sound of the target sliding in this game gets old quickly in game b you're in a simulated town targets appear in windows and slide out from behind corners once again shoot the gangsters as you progress the targets get faster and spend less time on screen if you miss 10 times it's game over game c is called trick shot three cans come onto the screen moving right to left your goal is to shoot the cans and get them to land on different platforms with specified points if ten cans fall off screen it's game over out of all the nintendo first party light gun games hogan's alley is probably my least favorite [Music] gumshoe is an interesting title nintendo of japan developed the game but only released it in north america and europe gumshoe is also more of a platformer than a shooting game in the game you play as mr stevenson an ex-fbi agent turned detective your only daughter jennifer has been kidnapped you have to collect five diamonds within 24 hours to save her gumshoe is an endless runner game you shoot stevenson to make him jump you can also shoot at enemies or objects that come after stevenson there are also skull death blocks scattered around the levels that you have to avoid there's a limited amount of bullets so you'll have to collect red balloons to increase your ammo every now and then these goofy looking birds appear on screen if you shoot the bird it will sometimes drop power ups like extra health or protection from certain enemies gumshoe is fun and unique but very challenging it's one of the hardest light gun games on the nintendo entertainment system oh boy an ljn game this is gotcha the sport based on ljn's toy line of the same name i'm honestly surprised ljn didn't come out with their own light gun to support this game this was the first light gun game that required you to use the controller and a light gun simultaneously your goal is to go through the level and capture the opponent's flag while shooting at enemies along the way your opponents can also grab your flag so you have to beat them back or shoot them you have limited ammo but there are ammo boxes you can shoot along the way to replenish there are only three levels and they loop and get progressively more challenging that's literally it i'd be pretty disappointed if i bought this game back in the day freedom force from sunsoft is a rail shooter meaning the game moves around for you and all you have to worry about is shooting the bad guys these games are popular in arcades so it made sense to try and bring the experience home the game starts with a pretty impressive cutscene by nes standards extremist gorillas have taken over an airport and it's your job to take them out and save the hostages in the bottom right corner you'll see different power-ups flash on screen you can shoot these to get more ammo or upgrade your weapon but sometimes the game will trick you and offer a power-up called harder which makes enemies tougher every two levels there is a code breaker minigame which is basically hangman guess the word and earn some bonus points freedom force is also two players but you just take turns on each level and try to earn the most points now here's something unique every time you beat the game a secret word appears on screen if you collect three words you could write them down and mail them to sunsoft this got you some freedom force self-adhesive decals i wonder if anyone ever managed to do that overall freedom force is a fun light gun game the two-player mode is disappointing but the rail shooter concept is a great idea for the nes it's finally time to check out space shadow the packing game for the bondi hyper shot at the main menu you'll see an option for sound and gun move if sound is on the audio will come through the speaker on the hyper shot gun move is for the body vibration system my guess is they added the speaker because of this feature it's pretty loud and it makes it hard to hear the television this game has serious alien vibes you are on a spaceship walking down corridors shooting aliens and picking up power-ups if you run out of health time or ammo it's game over you move down the hallway using the little joystick behind the magazine and you can lob grenades by pressing the b button on the front of the magazine space shadow is a cool game but it can be pretty intense because of how light guns work on the system when you're firing full auto the screen flashes over and over again quickly i might sound like a parent here but i wouldn't play too close to the television one of my biggest curiosities with space shadow is can you play with a standard light gun the answer is not really you can kill the first enemy you see but there is no way to move to the next screen even if you use a controller the game must be looking for input only from the 15 pin port space shadow and the hyper shot are a unique experience on the famicom but unfortunately it only came out in japan and the hyper shot isn't exactly easy to find these days here's another bandai title shooting range this is another game where you have to use the d-pad on the controller to scroll through the levels at startup you can select up to four players but don't bust out the nes4 score yet you just pass the light gun around to everyone in normal mode you go through three stages each with a unique theme and the goal is to shoot enough targets to reach the desired score the first stage is western themed you'll be shooting targets on top of native americans heads on cowboys and on birds the second stage is a haunted house and various monsters carry around the targets after the second level there's a bonus stage where you shoot flashing bottles and finally the third stage is in space at the end is the final boss a giant eye alien thing defeat him to win the game and add your initials to your high score there's also a party game mode where again your goal is to hit the targets the player with the highest score wins shooting range isn't very exciting or memorable [Music] it's time to go to the earth this is another rail shooter the year is 2050 and earth has fallen victim to a bacterial attack from a race of aliens your job is to fly your spaceship carrying the anti-bacterial agent back to earth and save the planet this is without a doubt the most brutal light gun game on the nes the biggest issue is how fast everything flies at you and there are a lot of enemies since you have to pull the trigger for each shot this game gets extremely tiring very quickly at the end of each level you'll fight a boss there are only four stages but i guarantee you'll be getting lots of game overs if you beat the game you'll get a thank you message from the president of the federation nestor the magnificent it's a nice little reference to the howard and nestor comics from nintendo power to the earth is a nintendo title although i'm not exactly sure who developed this game according to the united states copyright office cyr vert is the author of to the earth apparently this was their only game maybe one day we'll have to solve this mystery to the earth is way too hard and not very fun barker bill's trick shooting was the last officially licensed nes game that required a light gun it was released in august of 1990 one year before the super nintendo hit store shelves if you wonder who the heck barker bill is he was the host of a cartoon show back in the 1950s it's a weird license for nintendo to pick up maybe they thought they could appeal to an older crowd barker bill's trick shooting contains several games where you can test out your shooting skills the first game is balloon saloon and what do you know the duck hunt dog is back and you can even shoot him in balloon saloon you have to shoot the balloons before they fly off the screen you get three shots to hit each balloon as you progress more and more balloons appear on screen if you miss 10 times it's game over the next game is flying saucers barker bill and his lovely assistant trixie throw plates up into the air and you gotta shoot him sometimes the plates will cross paths if you time it right you can take out both with one shot make sure to avoid the parrot who wanders onto the screen from time to time next up is window panes this is probably the lamest game there are a bunch of windows some open and some closed objects will fall and you have to shoot them as they cross the open windows the final game is called fun follies it combines all the other games plus two new games trixie shot and bill's thrills in trixie's shot you have to shoot the coins trixie is holding but you have to watch out for that parrot who tries to steal the coins in bill's thrills barker bill throws objects at trixie's head you have to shoot them out of the air before they land on her there's also a bonus slot machine game where you can earn extra lives and keep the fun going you'll get a score summary at the end of each game including your accuracy which is a nice touch barker bill's trick shooting doesn't have much but it is a fun way to test your light gun skills even if you just want to get revenge on that dog that wraps up the light gun required games now let's move on to the light gun optional games as you can probably guess these games didn't require a light gun but you could use one if you wanted let's dive in [Music] operation wolf is a port of taito's popular light gun arcade game at the main menu you can choose to either play with the controller or a light gun if you play with a controller you move the reticle on screen with the d-pad and press a to fire with a light gun you shoot at the screen and use the b button on the controller to lob grenades this is another rail shooter you are a member of an elite tactical squad that must infiltrate a terrorist jungle fortress and rescue hostages the goal of each level is to kill every enemy and the game will tell you how many are left if you run out of ammo or health it's game over and you only get one life my biggest problem with this game is that it's difficult to pick up the power ups i think it would have been better if you automatically got power ups when you killed an enemy it's also much easier with a controller rapid firing with a light gun is exhausting all things considered operation wolf is a decent port of the arcade game the adventures of bayou billy combines all the things you love it's a beat em up game a driving game and a light gun game all in one it even has voices the adventures konami outdid themselves unfortunately bayou billy might be one of the most frustrating nintendo games i have ever played the hit detection is way off in the beat em up levels it makes the game incredibly difficult you'll be lucky to get out of the first stage the shooting comes in on the second and seventh stage of the game and are the complete opposite of the beat-em-up sections they're incredibly easy konami made a lot of great games on the nes this is not one of them [Music] the first track and field is one of my favorite arcade games track and field 2 is the sequel and only came out on the nes in the game you compete in a series of events you would find at the olympics running triple jumping fencing swimming pole vaulting you get the idea so when i first started the game i assumed the clay pigeon shooting would be the light gun supported event but it wasn't it turns out you used the light gun in a bonus game called gun firing in this game you have to i kid you not shoot a bunch of gangsters in a city street i'm confused imagine if this was an actual olympic event the manual says it's an excellent way to take out your frustrations for the medals you lost konami left this bonus game out of the japanese version it's an odd use of the light gun it would have made more sense in an actual event track and field too everyone [Music] it's not just any attack it's a mechanized attack this is an snk rail shooter that got ported from the arcade to the nes before you begin the game you choose to play with either a light gun or a controller you'll still have to hold a controller when you play with a light gun because the a button launches grenades your mission is to infiltrate an island base controlled by rebel forces the light gun mode is somewhat chaotic there are hitboxes everywhere so whenever you shoot it can get pretty disorienting especially when you are rapid firing and like operation wolf i think it's just easier to play this game with a controller man if only the hyper shot worked on these rail shooter games might be a different story [Music] strap in ladies and gentlemen this is laser invasion the only game made specifically for the konami laser scope now you don't have to use the laser scope you can use a controller or a light gun but in the spirit of gaming i will be playing this with a laser scope laser invasion is another one of those multiple types of games in one kind of game the first type of stage is a helicopter flight mode you press b to fire your machine gun and yell fire into the microphone to shoot missiles you use the d-pad to move around the second type of stage is a rail shooter like operation wolf or mechanized attack it's pretty easy too you can use a light gun to shoot the bad guys or yell fire into the laser scope the third type of stage is a 3d maze every now and then you get stopped and you have to shoot some enemies at this point yelling fire was just getting tedious using a light gun was much better but i have to admit the 3d maze sections were kind of cool it was like playing a first person shooter on the nes my biggest gripe with this game is for whatever reason you can't pause the game seriously the only time you get a break in game is if you're in the 3d maze and nothing's going on laser invasion isn't bad but it's best played with a light gun or controller not the laser scope here's another konami game with light gun compatibility the lone ranger man konami was a big fan of the light gun out of the seven officially licensed light gun optional games four of them are from konami the lone ranger is an action-adventure game based on the famous radio and tv series you play as the lone ranger on the hunt for butch cavendish who killed your brother or is it your father the game says brother but the manual says father well on top of all that butch has kidnapped the president of the united states it's up to you to get revenge and rescue the president once again konami pulls out multiple modes of gameplay there's top down shooting side scrolling an overworld map town exploration heck you can even play poker there are also first person sequences throughout the game and this is where you get to use a light gun for example in some towns you can play a mini game where you have to shoot bottles there are also maze areas where you'll have to stop every now and then and shoot some enemies the lone ranger is a fantastic game i honestly never even knew about it until i played it for this video you might even say it's a hidden gem do yourself a favor and check this one out [Music] we have arrived at our final licensed light gun optional game and it's a strange one daydream and davey this game was published by hal the fine folks behind the beloved kirby franchise but do not blame hal for this unpleasant game it was developed by sculptured software sculptured software is probably best known for porting mortal kombat to the super nintendo and the super star wars games in the game you play as davey who is bored at school and imagines himself in other worlds it plays sort of like a zelda game it has a top-down view and you fight enemies and you collect items but unlike the legend of zelda it is a pretty miserable experience can you tell i don't like this game so how exactly do you use a light gun in daydream and davey you literally use it one time during one event in the game it's in stage two of the old west world you have to take care of an outlaw in the blacksmith shop to beat the stage when you confront him you can use a light gun to shoot a gun out of his hand and that's it one trigger pull and you're done i'm honestly curious why the developers even bothered with adding light gun support but it's there play it if you dare let's wrap up this video by looking at unlicensed light gun games there are a handful of them but i wanted to look at two infamous titles that came out during the nes era [Music] baby boomer was one of the first games from color dreams later known as wisdomtree you may know wisdomtree as the creator of those unlicensed bible games baby boomer is kind of like gumshoe in that it's an endless runner a baby crawls across a level and your job is to protect it from enemies and objects there's also a milk bar that slowly ticks down you shoot milk bottles to replenish it the light gun is optional you can also play with a controller using the d-pad in fact the game is two player one player can use a light gun while the other uses a controller baby boomer is a game of trial and error a lot of enemies stay hidden until the very last minute and then jump out at you so you have to be very quick with your light gun baby boomer is a strange game it definitely has that unlicensed feel [Music] the last game i'd like to look at is chiller an unlicensed port of the controversial exedy arcade game exedy had quite a few light gun games in the arcades but chiller was very provocative due to its gore and torture scenes the game was banned in the uk and many arcades across the united states refused to purchase it exedy argued that the controversy just made people want to play the game more a small developer called american game cartridges decided you know what we should do port chiller to the nes with light gun support the goal of the game is to empty the monster meter before time runs out you do this by shooting pretty much whatever you can on the screen sometimes it's monsters or ghosts but you can also shoot humans being tortured you can also set traps off like this guillotine which falls and cuts someone's head off there's only four levels and they just loop and get progressively more challenging there isn't much to this game and it's clear they were just going for shock value i'm not surprised this was unlicensed but i will give chiller some props though it is the only light gun game on the nes that lets two players use a light gun simultaneously most two-player light gun games had you alternate on levels i'm honestly surprised more developers didn't try out a co-op mode so as you can see there were quite a few games that used a light gun on the nintendo entertainment system but as the nes era declined in the early 90s the popularity of these light guns waned still the next generation of consoles had their own light guns sega released the menacer for the genesis and nintendo came out with the super scope for the super nintendo but these peripherals would never match the popularity of the zapper in 2007 during the nintendo wii's heyday nintendo released an accessory called the wii zapper which was essentially a piece of plastic that turned your wii remote and nunchuck into a gun controller although technically it wasn't a light gun the wii zapper was a nice callback to nintendo's 8-bit glory days there's still a lot of nostalgia for the old zapper even today you can find people making games around it in 2016 developer andrew raytono launched a kickstarter for super russian roulette a new party game for the nes that uses the light gun in a pretty hilarious unique way well that about wraps it up i hope you learned something from this exhaustive look at light guns for the nintendo entertainment system that's all for this episode of the gaming historian thanks for watching funding for gaming historian is provided in part by supporters on patreon thank you [Music] so [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Gaming Historian

Views: 947,896

Keywords: zapper, nes zapper, nes zapper games, nes light guns, bandai hypershot, camerica videoblaster, dominator probeam, placo toys video shooter, video game light gun, nintendo entertainment system, nes hardware, nintendo hardware, gaming historian, video game history, nes, nintendo light gun games, nintendo light gun, how zapper works, how light guns work, nes light gun on lcd tv, wii zapper, famicom beam gun, famicom light gun, famicom light gun games, nintendo duck hunt

Id: keyDD-Eqom0

Length: 57min 1sec (3421 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 10 2021