Anyone else, as kids, use the Zapper by putting the gun right on the TV, Point Blank style? Ranking Black Box NES Games - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_Eu0H3I0cKA.html
Exactly. How are you going to talk about Wild Gunman and not mention BTTF? edit: And MIB gets a shout out for a game that isn't in the movie? Love you John and appreciate the content you just confuse me sometimes.
A very young Elijah Wood (the other kid relatively unknown) in I think one of his first roles. Best known these days as Frodo in the Lord of the Rings movies of the 2000s. A better kid actor in my opinion than the kid star of the time Macaulay Culkin, though oddly maybe not so much when they appeared together in the Good Son where Culkin's character actually fit his acting style.
Man I wanted the grey zapper when I was a kid! I had the orange one. I also don’t think it’s insensitive that you’re shooting people in Shooting Gallery, pretty much every other game you’re shooting people too and cowboys and Indians would have been acceptable up until a few years ago, there’s a lot of other things to worry about besides a cowboys and Indians Nintendo zapper game.
Hogans Alley used cardboard cutouts in game because it is based on Hogans Alley in Quantico where the FBI trained agents in "real life" scenarios using cardboard cutouts placed in different parts of Hogans Alley.
Trick Shooting is based on an old TV show from the States called Barker Bill, and the game is actually called Barker Bill's Trick Shooting. The dog is meant to be the one from Duck Hunt as well, apparently.
I remember when you got to level 30 on Duck Hunt the game became almost impossible. The ducks flew so fast in all directions like they were on crack. Still, it was a classic.
Love them all NES Zapper games! Duck Hunt, Wild Gunman, Hogan's Alley, Gotcha! The Sport!, The Adventures of Bayou Billy, Operation Wolf, Mechanized Attack, Laser Invasion, Day Dreamin' Davey, etc.
Man, I loved Gotcha as a kid. I still hear the "targeting music" in my head when I am scanning the shelves for items I want in the store. See chips...see kettle cooked... scan for jalapeno flavor...see it...gotcha. 😋
Note that Duck Hunt, Wild Gunman, and Hogan’s Alley were ported to the Wii U virtual console. You can play them with a Wii remote on a modern TV, no CRT necessary.
I REALLY REALLY REALLY WISH Nintendo or whoever could release all zapper games that work in touch screen on the switch or iPad. Imagine Gumshoe on switch??? Cmon Riggs! Make it happen❤️ if it’s available already, lemme know!
John clearly used a mouse cursor for the games, so he played it as emulation on a computerscreen. Implementing a touch screen would be easy at this point because its not different from a controller/mouse. However i dont think Nintendo has much interest in releasing old games on their platform. If you dont know about them yet, i advice you to read about Emulators. They run on almost every PC.
@@thomasherzog86, I have played Point Blank on the PS1 with a gamepad (to test it, hoping to get a CRT at some point in time...) - it ain't the same as aiming light-gun and I'd imagine it would be the same with a touchscreen or mouse cursor.
When I was a kid my Grandma would yell at us for walking in front of the Zapper. She would say "You're going to get nailed!". It still makes me laugh when I think about it. I was 5 or 6 at the time.
Clicked and liked so fast without watching this. I didnt find out til SUPER late that GOTCHA! had a movie. I actually like that game. Was my 2nd zapper game I ever had before Hogans Alley. We are talking Winter of 1988. My duck Hunk was a SMB twin cart. The Can game in Hogans Alley I enjoy. I actually prefer the controller for Operation Wolf. I didn't get Freedom Force until like 2017. Its kind of a .....hidden jem? its short and hard. Nice vid man!!!! I'm happy that I can make RU-vid videos again. and its funny how our styles are SO close.
A lot of people panned To The Earth because of its speed and difficulty. I admit it was brutal in the days when I was a kid but, now I can beat the game without coming in front of the screen. Once you trained enough and master all the other zapper games, then finally it's the time to play To The Earth.
I love to the earth. Played it at my grandparents house. Tried everything including putting the gun on the tv to beat it. Hard game. Cool ships, bosses, and movements.
"Wild Gunman", the NES shooting game famously featured (through for-the-movie animation) as an arcade cabinet in "Back to the Future Part II", originally started in 1974 as an electromechanical arcade game by Nintendo which made use of a 16 mm film projector showing footage of live-action bandits. Unfortunately, that game is now very rare as a cabinet and was never ported to computers or consoles, leaving us only with the NES version, but the thing that most people don't know is that it wasn't the only Nintendo electromechanical shooting gallery-type game from the 1970s, when their only video games were the Color TV-Games, they had a whole line of them.
Maybe they got frustrated not knowing how to play it. It’s a great capture the flag game. I used to play it as a team with my friend, taking turns in the gun and controller.
Yes! Loved that corded weapon! How many ducks suffered? How many cans twirled? How many criminals (looking almost identical to citizens) had to be shot! Love me some light gun 😁
didn't know Wild Gunman is that old, as it looks very nice. Duck Hunt, Wild Gunman and Hoogans Alley that's. the zapper games I used to play. Still have my old Zapper here but no CRT hehe...
Glad to see Freedom Force on here. Chiller was another one of my favorites, but unlicensed. If you haven't already as a kid, check out the Chiller arcade cabinet, it's over the top and shocking. Other shocking moments , playing either Mad World or House of the Dead Overkill on the family friendly Wii. LoL . Great vid as always 🤟✨✨✨
I rented Gotcha as a kid, and didn't know that the controller was needed. We just sat there and thought it was broke all weekend until it was almost time to take it back, and someone touched the controller and we saw the screen move 🤦♂️ I later bought the game, and it became my favorite zapper game.
You really should’ve added Chiller to this list, even if it is unlicensed, since it supported 2 simultaneous players, each with their own zapper. Also, Super Russian Roulette is great fun as a silly party game.
Aww, you didn't mention that you can shoot the dog in Barker Bill's Trick Shooting. You can finally get revenge on the dog for laughing at you in Duck Hunt!
I loved playing the shooting gallery as a kid, my states largest amusement park had one but I think they removed it from the park. I can't remember for sure, I haven't been there in 20+ years.
Gotcha! makes me wish that that's how the panning interludes in Top Secret Episode worked. That would have been weirdly frantic to have to pick up the gun.
Hogan's Alley was based on an actual shooting range used for military training at Camp Perry, hence all the "cardboard cutout" imagery. It has since reopened at Quantico as a 10-acre simulated city used for FBI training.
I brother and I got Trick Shooting second hand in the late 90s and always considered such a good zapper game compared to all we knew for the genre: Duck Hunt. Glad to see it get some love because it’s very good. Also nice go see someone else who prefers clay shooting in Duck Hunt. I almost never play the Duck modes.
wow I mean, even Gyruss took you a few levels to get to you... er Uranus so I guess it has that going for it? :P also I looked it up and the '1P can control the duck' thing in duck hunt *is* in the manual!
Just grabbed some Nyko Perfect Shots and been playing Duck Hunt on Wii U Virtual Console. Gonna have to pick up the other zapper games (that they have), Wild Gunman, Hogan's Alley and The Adventures of Bayou Billy. Wish they had all the games on your list. Very cool!
Amazing to think the major console that came before the NES was the Atari 2600 - people must have thought it was some kind of sourcery being able to shoot a gun at your TV to interact with it and graphics and game play are just WAY beyond anything the 2600 could have produced.
Hey, John, I had an idea: why don't you make a video about the best third-party NES controllers and peripherals? I think people usually mostly think only about official Nintendo products, but I heard there were some good ones from other companies, too.
*GASP* He did it! The NES ZAPPER RANKING!!!! I dont suppose you would do an Aladdin Deck Enhancer ranking video??? I know AVGN Blew them all up, but still...
I have a few zapper games I really like to play you know you got to love duck hunt or gumshoe. I've even tried to get past the third level of baby boomer. Though I don't think I've ever done that. Freedom Force of all of them that would be my all-time favorite light gun game for the NES not only just because it probably does have the best opening cutscene of maybe any game on the entire system or pretty close. Part of it is just the mechanics of how it plays and how close it almost seems to an arcade with how you pick up the power-ups and like how if you hit the wrong ones you'll make the game harder and if you ever notice the health power up is always the one that moves by really really quick. And how if you use up all your ammo I don't think you can get any more or you have to wait for the occasional ammo pickup. Very complex game but one of my favorite NES games overall. In fact I don't think I've ever gotten past stage 4
To the Earth was actually the first game I got with the NES. My brother got Captain Skyhawk, and we were to share SMB1/Duck Hunt, which came with the system. Needless to say, we still stuck mostly to the C64 until we got Dragon Warrior(Quest) 1, Mega Man 3, 4, and 6, SMB3, and a few others I don't remember that well these days. We had Duck Tales too, but dad broke the cartridge in half. It eventually went that the NES and later Genesis were for platformers and other action titles, with few to no RPGs, while all our RPGs were on the C64 or our 386 DOS machine. I still have never played a single Metroid or Castlevania game. I only played a Kirby game this year.
I had Wild Gunman and Duck Hunt as a kid. A few years ago I saw Freedom Force in my local vintage store. Never heard of it ‘til that point. I picked it up and glad I did. It’s great.
I remember seeing Gumshoe in the store and was puzzled by it. Mainly because I thought the guy looked a bit silly. Brought it home and didn't know it was a Zapper game and everyone tried to figure out how to play the game as we didn't think we had to check the instructions or anything yet (as it's usually me that look through manuals on our way home, but I didn't get to for this game). Later found out it was a Zapper game and it was a really fun game. I would wonder though. Has some mobile games got ideas from something like this? Because when I remembered Gumshoe again a few years ago, I realized Super Mario Run was really close to it. Mario constantly moving, you had to poke/shoot him to make him jump to get around things or get his coins/balloons and dodging obstacles.
Anyone else as a kid have fantasies about blowing the effing dog's head off in duck Hunt for laughing at you? Well if you ever wanted a game where you can officially get your revenge on the annoying dog there was an arcade version of duck hunt released that had bonus stages where you could shoot the dog and it was an official game called vs. duck hunt. But if you did blow the dog away you would automatically get an game over. But I can personally tell you that after years of torment trauma that dog caused my life there was no greater Joy than blowing his freaking face off. Teach you to laugh at me.
I don't understand how the one game was insensitive? They had American Indians in a wild west themed shooting range. They also had cowboys in it. If it was a 16th century Japanese themed scene would it have been insensitive to have samurai's as well as Mongols in it? I'd hope not because it's history. It didn't look to me at all outside of them having American Indians in it that it was any different than the cowboys. They both had targets on the edge of them and you even showed you lost points if you shot them and not the target. It's like in the name of sensitivity we want to wipe all imagery from everything from certain ethnicity or culture. Like the land o lakes logo that showed an Indian on it well now there isn't one. So one less acknowledgement to their culture out of the public eye. Really great.
I still more fondly remember the Vs. Hogan's Alley and Duck Hunt arcade games where the stages appeared back-to-back rather than selecting them from the menu and playing just the one until boredom set in. Maybe though that's because I didn't get a Zapper until much later, well after the peak of these two games.
I had a pair of Gotcha guns. They did not use paintballs (at least the ones I had), so that would be why you wouldn't call it paintball. They had a rotating magazine/cartridge with 6 shots or so. It had paint jammed and sealed into recesses in that cartridge. It just spat paint out when you shot it. So the range was awful compared to a ball that shoots out and breaks on impact. I think later they just started making paintball guns but were already being out-competed in that market. So yeah, Gotcha... not quite paintball.
The only game I ever knew that used the Zapper was Duck Hunt. The only thing that could have Duck Hunt better would be if you could shoot the laughing dog (and don't look at me like that. It's a cartoon dog).
