1. 1. History of Light Gun Games A Presentation of the Hardware and Software By Prof. Christopher Hopkins
2. 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. 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. 4. Seeburg Ray-O-Lite
5. 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. 6. Periscope
7. 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. 8. Brown Box Light Gun
9. 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. 10. Magnavox Odyssey Rifle
11. 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. 12. Shooting Gallery
13. 13. Wild Gunman 1974 Uses video projection to display the target on the screen.
14. 14. Wild Gunman
15. 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. 16. NES Zapper
17. 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. 18. Duck Hunt
19. 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. 20. Atari 7800 XG-1
21. 21. Alien Brigade
22. 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. 23. Sega Master System Light Phaser
24. 24. Operation Wolf
25. 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. 26. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
27. 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. 28. SNES Super Scope
29. 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. 30. Battle Clash
31. 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. 32. Yoshi's Safari
33. 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. 34. Sega Genesis Menacer
35. 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. 36. Snatcher
37. 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. 38. Konami Justifier
39. 39. Lethal Enforcers 1992 Graphics are digitized photographs Controversial - allows players to shoot photorealistic representations of enemies
40. 40. Lethal Enforcers
41. 41. Sega Saturn Stunner 1995 Bundled with Virtua Cop 1 and 2
42. 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. 43. Virtua Cop
44. 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. 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. 46. Dreamcast Dream Blaster
47. 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. 48. House of the Dead 2
49. 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. 50. Namco Guncon
51. 51. Time Crisis 4
52. 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. 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. 54. Wii Zapper
55. 55. Ghost Squad
56. 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. 57. Cabela Top Shot Elite
58. 58. Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2011
59. 59. Playstation 3 Sharp Shooter 2011 Plastic attachment houses the PlayStation Move motion controller Design of an MP5 submachine gun
60. 60. Playstation 3 Sharp Shooter
61. 61. Dead Space: Extraction
62. 62. Light Gun Games Today
63. 63. Questions? Prof. Christopher Hopkins Official Website