Light Guns - A Lost Genre of Incredible Games 

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If you’re a retro gamer with access to a CRT, light gun games are THE hidden gem genre of the entire hobby. So much fun.

Clearly the Switch 2 will have an IR sensor so Nintendo can finally release The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess + Link's Crossbow Training HD.

Pro tip from a CRT vet: If you're using Component video, your gun con must be connected to the GREEN line.

I would argue VR motion control shooters have become the spiritual successor to light gun games on modern consoles, which has just made me realise. I need a VR Kid Icarus game on the next console, the 3D on the 3DS was perfect for Kid Icarus and getting that on a big display would be awesome.

Duck Hunt on Wii U earned it a few extra years before I boxed it up. It pretty much turned into a Duck Hunt machine for two years.

Man… Sin and Punishment 2 was so much fun. One of the best rail shooters I’ve ever played, up there with Panzer Dragoon Orta. Glad I got both games on Wii U before the eShop went down. Edit: When I said “both games” I meant the two S&P games, not Panzer Dragoon lol.

Sin and Punishment: Star Successor is truly one of the greatest games ever made. Glad you covered it here, Jon!

The PS2 got quite creative with some of it's light gun games.... Like Konami's Police 24/7 let you plug in a webcam, so it would watch you dodge bullets and hide behind cover. And Starsky and Hutch also let you use a steering wheel, so you could chase and shoot at the same time! (also had a 2 player mode, so 2 light guns and a steering wheel)

The Wii is actually an amazing system for emulating light gun games through the homebrew channel, it's also crazy how many people don't know you can emulate light gun games with an actual light gun on a dreamcast or xbox, I think the dreamcast can only do it with a specific NES emulator but the original xbox can do nes and snes and maybe genesis too iirc, original xbox also is the only system to have light gun support for silent scope, it doesn't work that well, especially the part of the light gun accessory that senses if you're looking through the scope to enter scope mode but it's super neat. There's also a port of the arcade game Police 911 to the PS2 called Police 24/7 that is hands down the best light gun game on the system, it tried to do eyetoy tech before the eyetoy so you have to track down an old webcam and can use it for the fully body motion controls they had in the arcade and it's super fun.

Light gun games were simply modernized into VR. You can even emulate old light gun games like time crisis in VR on virtual arcade machines.

House Of The Dead Overkill had a great PS3 version as a Director's Cut with more stages and more story. You can play with the Move Controller or a regular controller. It even has 2 3D modes. One for 3D TVs and one where you can use these blue and red glasses. And if I'm correct, The Die Hard Trilogy on PS1 also had a lightgun compatible game in it.

I did not even have to start watching the video to know it was going to be amazing. I hit like as soon as the video started. Light gun games are my favorite genre. I'm in the same rabbit hole of purchasing consoles and 2 light guns + games for each of them.

Point Blank 3 will always be my favorite Light gun game, can play it infinitely. Vampire Night for ps2 is incredible, all the silliness and creepyness of House of the dead. Silhouette Mirage is another fantastic hidden gem light gun game.

Crisis zone is my favorite arcade game of all time. I spent so much money to get good enough to get on the leaderboard. So much fun.

I remember when I was a kid, going to the arcade and playing HOTD 1/2 and Time Crisis 2 a lot. What's funny is that, one day, I noticed that House of the Dead only uses one screen for multiplayer (unlike Time Crisis), so I was like: "Wait a minute. If I pay for the 2nd player too, I can play this game with dual wielding pistols!" So much fun...

can't believe Jon forgot the ultimate light gun game: literally every VR shooter! :D

HOTD 3 and Overkill are on PS3 as well. 4 also has an unlockable HOTD 4 Special, the giant thrill-ride version of HOTD 4 at SEGA Joypolis and other large amusement centers. There’s also a disc containing Time Crisis Razing Storm, Time Crisis 4, and Deadstorm Pirates. Dead Space Extraction is also available on the disc for Dead Space 2 LE!

Wow, I had no idea this genre had so many games and could be played at home to such depths. I only ever tried it at one arcade, in my country, so it's pretty cool to know about all the possibilities. They look so much fun!

Battle Clash and Metal Combat for the Super Scope are possibly the best "hidden" Nintendo games right now. The gameplay was all (surprisingly deep and strategic) boss fights and it had the mature "anime vibe" all the way back in the early/mid 90s.

One that wasn't mentioned in the Wii lineup was Transformers: Cybertron Adventures. This came out the same year that Transformers: War for Cybertron did and was designed more like an on-rails shooter than a 3rd-person shooter like the other title was. It does tell a similar storyline and lets you play as both the Autobots and Decepticons, but it has a funtamentally different feel from the rest of the franchise that wasn't available anywhere else.

Battle Clash on Super Nintendo, Confidential Mission on Dreamcast, MadDog McCree on Wii, and Virtua Cop 3 on Xbox deserved honourable mention.

The Guncon 2 is the ultimate light gun. Ninja Assault is hands down my favorite light gun game.

Gumshoe was a great light gun game on the NES. It was one of my favorite NES games. My 2 cousins owned it and we played it almost every time I visited when I was a kid back in the 80's.

House of the dead III also saw a release on PS3 with Move compatibility.

Sin & Punishment, both games, but specially the sequel, are absolutely magisterial games. Extremely fun to play, even alone

My favorite light gun arcade game when I was younger was Area 51, definitely one of the top ones I played in arcades with my dad

Don't forget about Crisis Zone on PS2. Not as good as Time Crisis 2 or 3, but still worth a shot. Also there's Time Crisis: Project Titan on PS1.

Ah, light gun games. A childhood classic. I really miss the genre. Had a lot of fun with them. Definitely something I wish didn't die alongside arcades.

There are emulators that let you play old light gun games in VR. Like it's not a full port to VR, you're still playing the game on a flat TV, it's just the TV is in VR. And it boggles the mind that the people who own these games haven't done an official version of that yet. House of the Dead collection, Virtua Cop collection, Time Crisis collection, Point Blank collection... I know VR's a niche market, but surely just emulating a few old games could be profitable. Anyway Audica and Pistol Whip are really cool, they're basically rhythm light gun games. They're the two main games that keep me coming back to VR.

Great to see someone giving Survivor 2 code veronica some praise. I grew up with this game and thought it was absolutely amazing to play this, felt like a expansion to the battle mode

Fun fact Jon will appreciate! I genuinely am obsessed with Links Crossbow training! I’ve played probably 150 hours in it and to my knowledge hold the world record on the final stage 😂

Thank for the warning at the beginning of the video, appreciated! I won't watch the video but I'm sure it is awesome as always!

Love the video! The quest is full of Light gun / Wave shooters John. I'm a gamedev too and its VR is my platform of choice to play light gun style games. Theres an awesome Sin and Punishment--like shmup there, some also has IP and ports like REZ, and if you want retro games, playing light gun games on a emulation screen, virtual desktop, dolphin, and so on is just awesome.

Kind of surprised there aren't many on-rail shooters for PC. A mouse seems like a great replacement for a light gun

In Europe, the Guncons were known as G-Con .45, G-Con 2 and G-Con 3 respectively (and are far better names imo). Also of note was a Konami arcade game called Police 24/7 that got a PS2 port which allowed you to plug in a USB webcam (not just the Eyetoy) to move your body to peek out of cover.

When I were a lad Operation Wolf was ubiquitous in arcades with its uzi gun. I thought the cut scene was so cool, kinda like Arnie getting ready in Commando.

I've literally been looking into investing in a PS2 and a CRT just this past week. It's always weird when one of my favorite channels decides to talk about something I'm actively looking into

If you're in the UK, I really recommend the retro games and computers museum in Derby. It's quite small (and hard to find) but they've got loads of old consoles set up and maintained for you to play. I had a go with Duck Hunt on it and it really holds up!

There are games that are in arcades that were not very playable on consoles because of certain gimmicks like silent scope. I believe Konami also made a light gun game similar to Time Crisis, but you physically had to move your body to dodge because of infrared sensors that would pick up where you were standing in the middle of the play field. They used the same sensor array for a boxing simulator as well. It's been forever since I've played them, but I do remember the gameplay very vividly.

Time Crisis Razing Storm on PS3 is a compilation of 3 arcade Light Gun games with the ability to use the PS Move or the Guncon 3, and includes Time Crisis 4, Razing Storm, and Deadstorm Pirates, and is slowly, but surely, going up in price.

I had a Guncon 1 and Point Blank on PS1 as a kid and I LOVED IT.

I wish I could have done this video! I love light gun games too and they're really interesting as a lost genre because current technology can't do them but I've only just started collecting the games and the guns. I'm having a great time though and looks like you are too and that's awesome!

When playing the demo version Point Blank 1, you actually don't need the GunCon 1 and you also don't need a CRT TV to play the demo. You can actually play the demo using a PS1 or a PS2 controller on an LCD TV. And when playing the demo you use the d-pad to move the cursor around, pressing the circle button to shoot and pressing the start button to pause the game.

Can’t believe Wii Play wasn’t even mentioned. _That’s_ the _real_ Duck Hunt for Wii. I found Link’s Crossbow training for $5 and I knew very little about it but I figured I should buy it. Watching the first half, I was starting to worry that I would need a Wii zapper to play it and maybe that’s why it was so cheap. 😰 But it looks way cooler than I ever expected.

I wish there was some way to play all the time crisis games on modern platforms it would be an instant buy for me

I have a huge collection of rail shooters. A little tip about the Nintendo Wii, softmod the system add emulators. The SEGA and Nintendo emulators have light gun support in the options. So you don't need a Nintendo WiiU to play duck hunt on a modern display or Master System light gun games, Mega Drive etc.

Played Sin&Punishment 2 for the first time about a year ago…completely changed my appreciation for Wii.

Sin & Punishment was a goood game. I wish we they'd make a new game or maybe just bring the WiiU port over.

Haven't played a lightgun game in over twenty years (which for me was mostly Time Crisis 2 and House of the Dead), but do you know what else I've not played since? Super Monkey Ball. So thanks, Jon, for a double-whammy of nostalgia with your choice of outro music!

the fact that most modern FPS games aren't compatible with some kind of Gun Controller is a tragedy, same with Splatoon

I have a CRT and the SNES Super Scope. I also plan to get the NES Zapper, Genesis Menacer, 2 PS1 Guncons and two Saturn light guns. I love these games.

I can't state enough of how much I love light gun games .Heck my first ever console game is house of the dead 2 on pc .It's just depressing to think that companies are not making new light gun games and worse to think that newer gamers are missing out on a fun genera of games .

I just learned about sin and punishment a few weeks back and was hoping John would mention it when I saw this video title. Awesome game

A genre i miss dearly, especially with all the available motion controllers and VR.

RE Gun Survivor 2 actually came to the US as an arcade(wherever you could find it) and it actually looked pretty interesting and it was a 2 player game with 2 cabinets linked. Even with 2 people it was hard as balls! But fun. It also controlled really weird on the arcade but it was easy to learn.

My brother had a sega master system and i loved the jungle hunt game. Very basic graphics but a great time :)

The genre more or less “died” along with CRT TV’s only to be remembered fondly by those who kept a hold of them

Light gun, beat em ups, rhythm games. Why do we keep losing all the cool things? Seeing games like transformers human alliance, NY gunblade, terminator salvation, and time crisis made my little kid brain explode. It's such a shame seeing these great genres just fade away over time.

I think people sell the Wiimote's accuracy short. With a little bit of set up on House of the Dead 2&3 you can basically get it to feel identical to a lightgun and turn off the recital. I've played hours of those games like that

00:05 John held that MF sideways 😂😂😂

If you want some good light gun games in VR, there's a few about. There's the Crisis Vrigade games, Blood & Truth, Pistol Whip, and they're just the ones I've played.

I think there was a Time Crisis like lightgun game on the original PSVR called Crisis VRigade. I remember playing that at a friend's house. Played just like Time Crisis and you had to duck irl to take cover in the game.

I got Ghost Squad for Wii recently and even got the Wii Zapper just for immersion sake. One of my favorite light-gun games I frequented in arcades, wished I had the space to get the Time Crisis games, too. (No space for CRTs). Gotta search for Link's Crossbow Training!

Did you also know that Point Blank had a DS version, I've played that version before it works very well in my opinion using the stylus as a lightgun Does anyone agree that Point Blank should return to Arcades again and return to the Nintendo switch where you shoot with the Joycons? That would be awesome!

Awesome

I have several light gun games on multiple consoles, the NES Zapper, Super scope, and Sega Saturn Gun, and I even tried my hand at GUN4IR. Unfortunately, I'm not tech savvy enough to make my own GUN4IR pistol, so I had instead opted to go Virtual. The Oculus Quest 3 is fantastic, and it's ALMOST exactly what I need. It's simple to use, set up, and store, but the only thing is that it doesn't have many, if at all, rail shooters. The CLOSEST thing Ive played are stuff like Zombieland VR and Crisis Brigade but they dont have the energy or charm that light gun games have on PS2 or arcade cabinets. I hope devs come to this realization because I would KILL for Time Crisis on my Quest 3.

This is why I want EmuVR to get support for PS2! I'd love to be able to play Time Crisis 3 again. Also, if you're interested in a lightgun game in VR, Robo Recall is a fantastic one!

Don’t forget RE4/5 had a “light gun” mode and other games like Toy Story Mania and The Shoot.

I was going to say, vr is the spiritual successor to light gun games. There are a few games that are on that platform that are clearly inspired by time crisis. Yes I do wish we had more and of some better quality. But it's not bad for what we have.

Light guns are crazy!

I neved had a lot of experience with lightgun games, i'm Brazilian, arcades were kinda hard to find and those peripherals could be really expensive, if they were even sold here, but i managed to play Gunblade NY with a friend in a mall and it was a blast, hope i can have more experiences with those types of games and that it can be more accessible someday

Point Blank is the best light gun game I've ever played. And i can't enjoy it unless it's at the arcade cabinet. It's just not the same otherwise.

Wii and Wii U had a really good potential for a light gun resurgence. Sadly best we got was links crossbow and Reaident Evil Umbrella Chronicles. Would love to see it come back somehow again

Super interesting video. I never got much chance to play lightgun games growing up, my family was too broke to ever play arcades or anything like that. So it's cool seeing this stuff. Something I've always wondered is, couldn't someone create a sensor similar to the Wii, but as two little "L-shaped" sensors, one to stick to the top-left of your screen, and the other to the bottom-right? That would essentially guarantee your lightgun (or Wiimote) would be absolutely perfect, at least as far as I understand these sensors to work. You wouldn't have to worry about screen size or calibration. And seems like it would be relatively cheap to produce?

A 35 minute video on lightgun games and still my childhood favourite of Gangster Town on the Master System is missed off.... Otherwise, great video as usual!

Point Blank is severely underrated compared to House of the Dead or Time Crisis, which are both remembered well

Silent Scope was another cool game. I remember a version in arcades that you could win money from.

There is a bowling alley near the dental office I go to, and it has an arcade. Maybe I might go to it once I have the chance and play some light gun games! I do remember playing Ghost Squad at Dave & Buster's a few times...

Virtua Cop 2 is my fav, absolutely fantastic

It annoys me that the Wii U, despite being perfect for light-gun games, never saw any. Why HOTD Overkill: Extended Cut, HOTD 4, Time Crisis 1-4 & many others weren't ported is a shame & missed opportunity.

If we ever get Twilight Princess HD on Switch, I hope a remaster of Link's Crossbow Training is included. As for the lack of tracking in the Joy-Con, a simple solution would be to use the right Joy-Con upside-down and have something on the screen for the ir camera to lock onto. Might not be the most comfortable thing to hold, but someone could sell a plastic gun shell to fix that.

I played Sin and Punishment: Successor or the skies earlier this year and Jon is right, PLEASE PLAY IT!!!

Most of my Wii multiplayer experiences are me telling my friends "we can play Smash Bros any time, check out this shooter with me". Seeing as Smash is still here, I made the right executive decision. I especially wish Nintendo had bothered to make just one of these games for their wii hardware, rather than leaving it completely to third parties. I don't know how Miyamoto holds a Wiimote in his hand and says "nope, I don't see any potential for a Star Fox here". And Nintendo Land! There's a rail shooter minigame using the tablet's touch screen, but nothing for the wiimote? What a blindspot.

Great picks, but don't forget Master System. Got some great lightgun games, even a homebrew puzzle game uses it

I want light gun games to come back.

Sin & Punishment 2 is still up there for me. I really hope Treasure come back one day but things aren't looking too well for a Sin & Punishment 3...

I have the RedOctane foot pedal for PS1. I also have: EMS LCD TopGun for PS2, GunCon 3 for PS3, Marz Lightcon for PS4, Sinden for PC I'd kill for Silent Scope on Wii U or a gun with an LCD scope like it I also have the Move Sharpshooter, and AIM controllers for PS3/PS4 There is Gal*Gun VR, and you absolutely need to try Robo Recall on Oculus Rift

Honestly hope switch 2 has a improved pointer controls closer to Wiimote accuracy as a big feature, would make for a lot of really easy ports honestly and a good return of lightgun games.

Great video I think you miss few stuff. 1. Back in the 90s and the early 00s Namco been very close to sony and basically been the rareware of PlayStation. If mentioning Namco You forgot to mention Ghoul Panic for PS1 (It’s basically Point Blank in 3D graphics), Crisis Zone on PS2 (if you thought Time Crisis 2 look better on PS2 than The Arcade than the differents here look much better), Time Crisis Rasing Storm on PS3 (the only way to play time crisis 4 with the ps move and also the only game that’s support both guncon 3 & ps move) and the Point Blank + Time Crisis 1 Collection on PS2 that’s released only in japan (this one have brand new stages in 3d exclusive in this collection). 2. The OG Xbox didn’t have an official light gun but they have the best version of the Silent Scope Games. You really need to check Silent Scope Complete because unlike the ps2 games that’s don’t support guncon 2 the xbox version support light guns. 3. The GunCon 2 have much more games than time crisis. Resident Evil Dead Aim is better than Survivor 2, Dino Stalker (A Dino Crisis Spin-Off) is basically Survivor 2 but better and with dinosaurs and also Virtua Cop Elite Edition is the best version of the first two Virtua Cop games. 4. There are a lot of rail shooters on the ps3 thanks to the ps move for example Ape Escape got a rail shooter on the ps3 (it’s not a good game but still it’s ape escape), the ps3 version of gal gun have ps move support (as far as i know the only version of the game with light gun support) and even killzone 3 & resistence 3 have light gun support with the ps move and they work perfectly. 4. The House of the Dead Remake on PS4 (i think also the PS5 version as well but not 100% sure) have PS Move and PS Aim Controller Support. BTW i would like to see a video comparing all Versions of Puyo Pop Fever

27:48 the Mii on the top left: "Its free real estate"

John, I don't know if you're familiar with the channel but your videos (somehow) feel like a more relaxed version of Classic Game Room. In fact, your videos feel the gaping hole that was left when CGR Undertow was dissolved. Don't ever stop talking about things you care about.

There's a Sega CD emulator for Wii that supports using the Wii remote as the light gun, I used it with Snatcher

The Resident Evil ones should definitely get VR ports!

Went through Resident Evil Chronicles, Dead Space Extraction and House of the Dead Overkill on both Wii and later on PS3. Move has way better responsiveness and accuracy than Wiimote. Wiimote suffered from lag even with that addon. And also Wiimote range of motion was limited to that tiny bar, while Move aimed exactly within a field of your TV. Maybe you didn't calibrate Move well? Because you had to re-calibrate it from time to time. I really loved that era of gimmicky control scheme with Wiimote and Move in shooters.

Playing Metroid Prime 2 on Wii - I think it really is peak fps control.

thanks for the photosensitivity heads-up. means a lot!

There are some efforts like the GUN4IR to bring back CRT lightgun accuracy to modern hardware, you guys should try it out! 😊

My mom isn't a gamer, but her favorite game was House of the Dead 3 whenever we'd go to the arcade. 2 Definitely has the better OST, but gameplay wise I prefer 3.

6 AA batteries?? Good lord