This slideshow accompanied a talk for the History of Games class at LIU Post on March 16, 2015. *A revised version of this presentation is available at: https://www.slideshare.net/snazzyhoppy/history-of-light-gun-games-160750146

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