Step right up. Test you shot at our light gun shooting gallery!
Video game light guns date back to the 1930s. Early electro-mechanical arcade systems used a range of technology including vacuum tubes, cardboard targets, and 16mm film projectors. Light guns were brought to home consoles with pong-like games in the 1970s. These systems had photo-sensors in the guns which detected the distinctive patterns of CRT televisions. Popularity of light gun games peaked in the late 1990s.
Our shooting gallery is equipped some of the most iconic light guns for home consoles.
NES Zapper
While it wasn't the first, the NES Zapper is perhaps the most iconic light gun. The Zapper was first released in 1984 as the Beam Gun for the Famicom along with the game Wild Gunman. You may recognize the game from the Cafe 80s in Back to the Future II. In the scene (which was Elijah Wood's first on-screen appearance) the kids of 2015 were throughly unimpressed: "You have to use your hands? That's like a baby's toy!”
In 1985 the Zapper was released in North America, alongside the launch of the NES. The Zapper was included in the NES Action Set and came bundled with Duck Hunt.
Sega Light Phaser
When the Sega Master System was launched in North America in 1986, it was bundled with a Light Phaser and multi-cart containing Safari Hunt. Over the next few years, around a dozen more games were released supporting the Light Phaser.
The Light Phaser's black plastic shell was designed to resemble a futuristic laser pistol. The same design was featured as a weapon in the Sega-backed anime series, Zillion. The all-black design was realistic enough that there were concerns that police might mistake it for a real gun; later versions were altered with hand-painted orange tips to identify them as a toy.
Konami Justifier
The Justifier was originally designed to support Konami's game Lethal Enforcers. Versions were released for the Sega Genesis, the Super NES, and the PlayStation. In the early 1990s the Justifier and its associated games were the subject of extensive contreversy, including congressional hearings on video game violence.
The Genesis and SNES versions were modeled after the Lethal Enforcers arcade revolvers, similar in appearance to the Colt Python. The blue "player 1" version was bundled with the game and connects directly to the console. The pink "player 2" version was only available by mail-order and connects by daisy-chaining through the blue gun.
The PlayStation version, with a green shell, was redesigned to have a less realistic appearance.
Nuby Sniper
NubyTech is a third-party accessory developer creating unique controllers for a variety of game systems. In the late 90's they released a variety of light guns for the PlayStation and other systems. The Sniper featured recoil vibration, auto-fire, auto-reload.
There were two primary light gun standards developed for the PlayStation: the Justifier designed by Konami, and the GunCon designed by Namco. The two standards were incompatible, and most light gun games supported only one or the other. The Sniper has a two-mode switch which allows it to be compatible with games designed for either standard.