1. History of Light Gun Games A Presentation of the Hardware
and Software By Prof. Christopher Hopkins
2. Definition A type of video game where the player uses a
pointing device in the shape of a gun to shoot at targets onscreen.
In many cases, the targeting sensor is built into the gun itself,
and the moving targets light up, instead of the other way around.
Most light gun games double as Rail Shooters, in that the player's
path is fixed and he/she can proceed only after all hostiles have
been eliminated.
3. Seeburg Ray-O-Lite 1936 Features a flying duck with a light
sensing tube that would drop the duck when you shot it with the
rifle, which produced a beam of light when the trigger was
pulled
4. Seeburg Ray-O-Lite
5. Periscope 1966 Sega's first successful game released
Requires the player to target cardboard ships. An early
electro-mechanical game The first arcade game to cost a quarter per
play
6. Periscope
7. Brown Box Light Gun 1967 Target-shooting games were part of
video game history from the very beginning. Used to play the Target
Practice game on the Brown Box, a prototype for the first
multiplayer, multiprogram video game system.
8. Brown Box Light Gun
9. Magnavox Odyssey Rifle 1972 First gun for a home console
Design of a big rifle, which looks very lifelike and needs to be
"cocked" after each shot. Packaged with the Magnavox Odyssey
10. Magnavox Odyssey Rifle
11. Shooting Gallery 1972 Four games: Dogfight, Prehistoric
Safari, Shootout and Shooting Gallery. A nasty rumor quickly spread
that said the Shooting Gallery would only work with Magnavox
televisions Sales never recovered
12. Shooting Gallery
13. Wild Gunman 1974 Uses video projection to display the
target on the screen.
14. Wild Gunman
15. NES Zapper 1985 First mainstream Light Gun Design is a Star
Wars-inspired laser blaster that features a gray barrel and a dark
gray grip to match the styling of the original NES. Packaged with
the NES in all of Nintendo's early systems to create a total
package of entertainment.
16. NES Zapper
17. Duck Hunt Packaged with nearly every variation of the NES
Developed by Nintendo Research and Development 1 Producer was
Gunpei Yokoi, notable as the creator of the Game & Watch series
and later the Game Boy Many gamers first experience with a light
gun Promote NES as a toy, not a video game
18. Duck Hunt
19. Atari 7800 XG-1 1987 Bundled with the Atari XE Video Game
System deluxe set Design similar to NES Zapper Compatible with
Atari 7800
20. Atari 7800 XG-1
21. Alien Brigade
22. Sega Master System Light Phaser 1987 Little impact on the
Master System's library Design based on a weapon from the anime
Zillion One of the last toy guns to get away with a "realistic"
look before the US laws on toy guns required a slight redesign. The
orange-tipped "safety" version is actually a hard-to-find
collectible.
23. Sega Master System Light Phaser
24. Operation Wolf
25. Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991 Arcade release Positional
Gun - features a replica of an Uzi bolted to the cabinet, An arcade
staple for almost a decade after its release
26. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
27. SNES Super Scope 1992 Design of a bazooka Marketed hard by
Nintendo when it was first released Appeared in the Super Mario
Bros. live action movie as the weapon that took down Bowser
28. SNES Super Scope
29. Battle Clash 1992 One-on-one mech fighting game where
players stepped into the gunner's seat while a computer controlled
character named Mike piloted the mech Players were able to blast
away at their opponents weak points and the last mech standing won.
Possible to destroy a mech's legs so they couldn't move and could
be blasted at your leisure.
30. Battle Clash
31. Yoshi's Safari 1993 Rail shooter with support for the Super
Scope light gun. Plays from the perspective of Mario, riding on
Yoshi's back. The Super Scope can be fired automatically, which
quickly drains power. The RPM of the Super Scope decreases when its
Power Meter is close to empty.
32. Yoshi's Safari
33. Sega Genesis Menacer 1992 Three pieces that assemble into a
military assault rifle. Small blaster shaped weapon, with optional
shoulder stock and twin sights Besides T2, the Menacer received
most of it's fame from the Sega CD add-on, which it also was
compatible with.
34. Sega Genesis Menacer
35. Snatcher The most famous game that made use of the Menacer.
The body snatching of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the realistic
robots of The Terminator and the future-noir feel of Blade Runner
were all mixed together to create Snatcher. Sold poorly when
originally released in 1994, but became in-demand after the release
of Kojima's Metal Gear Solid
36. Snatcher
37. Konami Justifier 1992 Original design similar in appearance
to a Colt Python Green Justifier was the first light gun for the
PlayStation 1 Blue Justifier for Sega Genesis, Sega CD, and Super
NES Pink Justifier can be daisy-chained into the blue Justifier
with a 6-pin RJ-11 phone cord
38. Konami Justifier
39. Lethal Enforcers 1992 Graphics are digitized photographs
Controversial - allows players to shoot photorealistic
representations of enemies
40. Lethal Enforcers
41. Sega Saturn Stunner 1995 Bundled with Virtua Cop 1 and
2
42. Virtua Cop 1994 Arcade, 1995 Sega Saturn Innovative way to
target different parts of the baddies An original threat indicator
Interesting locales and bosses
43. Virtua Cop
44. Controversy Since the late 1980s a U.S. federal law
requires "realistic" toy guns to have an orange cap on the end In
Japan, which lacks the gun crime found in the U.S. and in which
civilians cannot legally own guns, more realistic light guns are
widely available Suppressed for a time in the U.S. after the 1999
Columbine High School massacre
45. Dreamcast Dream Blaster 1999 by Mad Catz Design is a Type-2
phaser from Star Trek: TOS Features auto-reload and no delay on
reload The Columbine High School massacre led to Sega pulling their
own light gun out of North America in favour of Mad Catz's
46. Dreamcast Dream Blaster
47. House of the Dead 2 1999 by Sega Rail shooter Auto-reload
feature allows players to point guns off- screen to reload their
weapons without pulling the trigger Branching path system for
variety of different routes leading to the same point in the game's
story
48. House of the Dead 2
49. Namco Guncon 1997 - Guncon 1 bundled with Time Crisis for
Playstation 1 2001 - Guncon 2 bundled with Time Crisis 2 and 3 for
Playstation 2 2007 - Guncon 3 bundled with Time Crisis 4 for
Playstation 3
50. Namco Guncon
51. Time Crisis 4
52. HD Televisions Older light gun games rely on the way CRT TV
sets refresh the screen to tell where the gun is aiming. Current
gun games use infrared sensors tracked by the gun so that the
monitor and the gun aiming are completely independent of each other
This allows for modern gun games to use plasma and LCD
screens.
53. Wii Zapper 2007 Simple gun-shaped plastic shell that houses
the Wii remote and nunchuk attachment Provides a near-ideal grip
for shooting games
54. Wii Zapper
55. Ghost Squad
56. Cabela Top Shot Elite 2010 Bundled with Cabela's Dangerous
Hunts 2011 First light gun for XBox 360 First wireless light gun
for Playstation 3
57. Cabela Top Shot Elite
58. Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2011
59. Playstation 3 Sharp Shooter 2011 Plastic attachment houses
the PlayStation Move motion controller Design of an MP5 submachine
gun
60. Playstation 3 Sharp Shooter
61. Dead Space: Extraction
62. Light Gun Games Today
63. Questions? Prof. Christopher Hopkins Official Website