The Light-Gun Games Thread

[Classicgamer]

The accuracy of the Guncon 3 is about the same (or slightly better) as the TC4 gun in my last local arcade. Neither are as good as a real light gun but they do work (mostly).

These companies need to learn that a good home port is a port of the whole experience. The gun with recoil and a moving slide is a key thing people liked about the arcade games. The days when it was OK or expected that home ports were inferior to the coin-op are over. That bright orange lifeless GC3 with the awkward side controller ruined everything.

There is literally no reason why they can't make a decent home solenoid recoil gun these days. We have decent force feedback racing wheels but no decent recoil guns.

There is so much effort to make graphics realistic and yet most home games are played with a joypad still or those awful Playstation Dildo sticks (the Move controller).

[Jonny2x4]

I got my Super Scope fixed recently (actually, I simply replaced my non-function transmitter with a functioning one) and decided to replay Battle Clash, as well as its sequel Metal Combat (which I bought new and unused many eons ago, but never got to play on an actual console until now). Really underrated games, both of them. I've actually played Metal Combat before emulated, but a mouse is not quite the same experience as using an actual gun.

[Cannonballs]

Anyone Japanese ps2 disc with virtua cop1 and 2? I’m curious how it plays with the Guncon 2. I’m guessing very well?

[BrianC]

Does the JP PS2 disc run at 60 FPS? From what I have seen, they don't seem to be direct ports of the arcade.

[Blinge]

Hey all.

Is playing with a mouse in MAME any good for HOTD?
Is it a good way to practice at home, to try and get a 1cc out in the wild on a real cab?

just memo right?

[Mortificator]

Is playing with a mouse in MAME any good for HOTD?
Is it a good way to practice at home, to try and get a 1cc out in the wild on a real cab?

just memo right?

Moderate practice will help. You'll learn how to rescue all the scientists, find the life-ups, and deal with the boss patterns. With heavy, perfectionist practice, though, you might build muscle memory that'll work against you when the interface is different.

[Mortificator]

Zombie shooting extravaganza! Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is the culmination of six light gun spin-offs, each better than the last, and the fact that it's only mediocre tells you how abysmal the run started with Gun Survivor. Like Umbrella Chronicles, some of its stages are remakes from older Resident Evil games, games that are more suitable than the lower-key RE1; original RE2 was already a blastathon. There's a bit of a budget this time, with weapon models instead of jpgs and no recycled geometry from Outbreak. QTEs are less frequent. The new scenario, Operation Javier, includes original creature designs and gives Krauser's appearance in RE4 more impact than "the comrade who's never appeared before is back and on the enemy side!"

...Though it makes Leon seem a little soft in the head for going on consecutive assignments in Spanish-speaking countries without learning a smidge of the language or pronunciation. LOO-ISS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are still significant downsides. The new campaign keeps that Resident Evil feel with slower moments to build tension, yet those make replays lose their shine. Another annoyance is that I'm more inclined to replay the new campaign, skipping the delves into RE2 and Code: Veronica, and while this is possible, you can't really go at it fresh. The player's expected to have upgraded his weapons from the detours into the older games and enemies take far too long to wear down if you skip them. If you've upgraded your weapons fully, you have the opposite problem, with everything dissolving in your sight even on max difficulty. Enemies lack the tells that top-tier light gun shooters have learned to incorporate. The next to last boss in particular has a super-fast and damaging attack that requires counter-intuitive targeting to interrupt. And of course there's the shakeycam, a cinematic contrivance that makes Darkside double as a boozehound simulator.

The House of the Dead: Overkill was next, and immediately the energy jumped up. This game's much better at blending an action-packed arcade experience with the narrative and fluff of a console game. Weapon upgrades don't conflict with fresh replays. We've got the cancel gauge from Vampire Night and hey, the story ties into Zombie Revenge! The grindhouse tone is fun for a while, though it becomes tiresome before the end. Chain-based scoring results in shotguns being way more beneficial than automatics.

The House of the Dead 4 actually takes some time to get going. The first two stages are weak and the first boss is tedious, even with the trick to kill it more quickly. Fortunately, things get much better by the end of stage 2 and the remainder of the game is extremely fun. Having an automatic weapon and bombs make survival easy (for ARCADES, the difficulty's still beyond consoles). At the same time, the skill ceiling is high and getting good ranks is tougher than ever before. The scenario is a remake-in-all-but-name of HotD2, as Gradius 4 was to Gradius 2, and once more I prefer gameplay in the newer entry over the nostalgic fan favorite.

Disappointments? Well, zombies just flare up when destroyed, you can't blow them into bloody bits. Enemy zombies can't be damaged before a designated frame, and background zombies can't be damaged at all, so my ~finely-tuned~ House of the Dead instincts lead to wasted shots.

I'd forgotten how tough The House of the Dead 3 is. 4 inversed. It's quite a transition to shooting enemies early and after downed with a powerful slow weapon. 99% of not getting wrecked comes down to timing your reloads.

This was my first time playing the Wii version. It looks better than the PC port and there are some unique features. "Extreme" mode adds a melee strike that neutralizes just about any enemy attack. It's fun to just bat away damage!... until the narrowed shotgun judgment gets you. Which calls into focus how 3's shotgun doesn't work like the accepted gaming archetype, it doesn't spread over distance or do more damage at close range. "Welcome to The House of the Dead 2" is a brief elevator ride back in time to HotD2 that unlocks items in its "Original" mode.

In other news, a local place got cabs of HotD1 and Time Crisis 4! Uhhhhhh, terror bites........

[XoPachi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTJOdyUFSIY