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 they can proceed only after all hostiles have been eliminated, although older examples tend to not feature player movement of any kind, making them akin to gallery shooting.
The first commercial electromechanical light gun game was the Seeburg Ray-O-Matic
, introduced in 1936. The player's weapon fired a beam of light; if it hit the photosensitive tube mounted on the moving duck-shaped target, a circuit was completed and the player scored. Like many other arcade games, electromechanical light gun games were generally replaced by more versatile, fully electronic models (which used the sensor-gun design mentioned above) during The '70s and Eighties.
The light gun shooter genre is popular in arcades, some of the most popular being Lethal Enforcers, Virtua Cop, and Time Crisis. Console light gun shooters have also popped up from time-to-time, but fell out of favor in the early 2000s with the rise in popularity of First Person Shooters. It should also be noted that many older lightgun games won't work on modern televisions, as the guns relied on the way CRT TV sets refreshed the screen to tell where you were aiming. Instead, current gun games, particularly those in arcades, use infrared sensors tracked by the gun (which is an infrared camera designed to resemble a 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. The Wii is similar, using a "sensor bar" that is tracked by the Wii Remote to determine the location of the on-screen cursor (if any), making it an affordable platform for native gun games and arcade gun game ports. The PlayStation Move add-on for the PlayStation 3 is also compatible in the same fashion.
Some of these arcade games are technically not light gun games but "joystick gun" games, as the aiming mechanism is actually a joystick firmly mounted on the face of the cabinet, upon which the gun is mounted. This makes holding and aiming the gun as if it were real simply impossible, but makes keeping your aim steady a hell of a lot easier. In Silent Scope, Revolution X, and T2 the gun requires calibration as part of its boot sequence, though this is not true of other "joystick gun" games like the sprite-based Jurassic Park motion seat game. The later 2010's saw a resurgences of mounted light gun games in arcades due to them allowing for faster gameplay plus being cheaper to produce than the plasma screen sensors though there are some occasional instances of the traditional set up.
Notable arcade light gun games:
- After Dark
- Alien 3: The Gun
- Aliens Extermination
- Aliens Armageddon
- Area 51
- Maximum Force, its sequel / Spiritual Successor
- Brave Firefighters: Sort of. You use a simulated firehose to put out fires, but the principle and hardware are the same kind as those of gun games.
- CarnEvil
- Chiller: Produced by Exidy, was known for its early use of graphic content in an arcade game. Ported to the NES by American Game Carts Inc., also supporting the Zapper.
- Cobra - based on the anime of the same name. With a gameplay format lifted from Time Crisis
- Confidential Mission
- Crime Patrol: Full Motion Video Light Gun game
- Crime Patrol 2: Drug Wars
- Crossbow: Another, less graphic arcade title by Exidy.
- Crypt Killer: First non-mounted gun game to allow three players.
- Dark Escape 4D
- Deadly Tide
- Deadstorm Pirates
- Die Hard Trilogy for the Playstation have levels which are in Light-Gun format
- Dino Stalker
- Dino Strike Wii - for the Wii, not to be confused with the Beat 'em Up game Dino Strike for the PC
- Dream Raiders
- Evil Night: Konami's answer to House of the Dead, also allows three players to play at once, similar to Crypt Killer.
- Gaia Attack 4 — before anybody asks, NO, there isn't a Gaia Attack 1, 2 or 3.
- Gallagher's Gallery: The fruit-smashing comedian stars in a laserdisc-based collection of light-gun challenges.
- GHOST Squad
- Ghoul Panic
- Golgo 13 (For the light gun games from 1999 to 2001)
- Gunblade NY & L.A. Machineguns
- Gunfighter: The Legend of Jesse James (and its sequel, Revenge of Jesse James)
- Gunslinger Stratos: Has two guns you must dual wield by default, that can be combined into a larger gun, and is a Hero Shooter instead of a Rail Shooter.
- Guntu Western Front June 1944
- Haunted Museum (Panic Museum in Japan)
- Haunted Museum II: Shh! Welcome to Frightfearland (just the subtitle for exports)
- House of the Dead
- Invasion: The Abductors
- Johnny Nero Action Hero
- Jurassic Park (Arcade): The first three games at least. Fourth game is a mounted gun game.
- Laser Ghost
- Lethal Enforcers
- Let's Go Jungle: Lost on the Island of Spice
- Locked 'n' Loaded
- Lost Land Adventure
- Lucky & Wild
- Lupin the 3rd: The Shooting
- Mad Dog McCree: Full Motion Video Light Gun game
- Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold and The Last Bounty Hunter
- The Maze Of The Kings
- Mechanized Attack
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Spirits of Zeon
- Monster Eye
- Monster Eye 2: Despite being listed as a numbered sequel, it's more an expansion on the first game with a few new stages.
- Ninja Assault: Ninjas with guns.
- The Ocean Hunter
- Point Blank
- Police 911
- Ranger Mission
- Sailor Zombie
- Sega Golden Gun
- Target Terrornote
- Terminator: Salvation
- Time Crisis
- Too Spicy (notable as it also is a third-person, versus multiplayer lightgun game)
- Total Vice
- Tomb Raider Arcade: A repacked version of the 2013 game made into a rail shooter. Standard cabinets allows up to four players.
- Transformers: Human Alliance
- Under Fire
- Vampire Night: A joint game from Sega and Namco under the WOW Entertainment Label.
- Virtua Cop
- Who Shot Johnny Rock
- Most games by American Laser Games count
- Zombie Raid A 1995 zombie shooter from Sammy Corporation, notable for its animated gore and intense difficulty.
Notable arcade joystick gun games:
- Alien 3: The Gun
- Aliens: Extermination
- Aliens Armageddon (Sometimes labeled Alien Covenant in a rather rushed attempt to tie in with the then upcoming 2017 movie. Other the then title change, though, it's still the same game).
- Beast Busters
- Beast Busters: The 2nd Encounter, jump from 2-D to 3-D.
- Cheyenne (a Wild West themed game released by Exidy)
- Crossbow (which, true to it's name, is set in Medieval times, and features a crossbow as the controller)
- Combat (a military themed game)
- The laserdisc game Galaxian 3 is this on a large scale. Originally a theme park attraction with support for up to 28(!) players, it was later released as a 6-player arcade game using the "Theater 6" system (this version is subtitled "Project Dragoon")note
- Attack of the Zolgear, a sequel to the above game.
- Halo: Fireteam Raven: Four player shooter.
- Operation Wolf
- Plants vs. Zombies: The Last Stand
- Revolution X: Featured Aerosmith. Not just on the soundtrack, but also as part of the resistance against the oppressive NON. Find them all in the places they've been hauled off to for score-multiplying "Wings" and the best ending.
- Silent Scope
- Space Gun
- Steel Gunner
- Steel Gunner 2
- T2: The Arcade Game (used a mounted machine gun as its controller; the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis ports, however, were light gun games)
- The Terminator: Salvation arcade game is a unique example, as it's available as either a joystick gun version (the 32-inch compact version) or a traditional light gun version (the 42-inch deluxe and 100-inch super-deluxe models).
- The Walking Dead (Arcade)
Notable console light gun games:
- Baby Boomer: An unlicensed Zapper game, released by Color Dreams for the NES.
- Barker Bills Trick Shooting
- Battle Clash and its sequel, Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge
- Dead Space: Extraction, for both being a well-designed game by itself and a good continuity nod to all previous Dead Space material, almost too good to be called Continuity Porn.
- Death Crimson
- Duck Hunt is one of the best-known examples because it was packaged as one of the NES's flagship titles.
- Elemental Gearbolt, featuring some beautiful music and environmental design and an attempt at something beyond the usual Excuse Plot, via anime cutscenes between each level.
- Endgame, one of the lightgun titles that proves what the PlayStation 2 was made for.
- Freedom Force (NES)
- Gotcha! The Sport!: A rare example of a licensed NES game that calls for the Zapper.
- Gumshoe: An NES game where, surprisingly, you want to shoot the protagonist, as it effectively acts as a jump button that way.
- Hogan's Alley: One of the NES launch titles.note
- Laser Invasion: Made not just for the Zapper, but also was released alongside Konami's head-mounted take and fixture of The Angry Video Game Nerd, the Laser Scope. Their modes are interchangeable as well—The difference is the special weapons being relegated to a controller or the accessory.
- Link's Crossbow Training: Bundled with the Wii Zapper peripheral.
- Medal of Honor Heroes 2 has an arcade mode, which turns the game into an on-rails shooter.
- Menacer: A collection of games for the Sega Genesis accessory of the same name.
- Project: Horned Owl: A spiritual predecessor to Elemental Gearbolt.
- Resident Evil: Gun Survivor had its GunCon compatibility removed from the first game for its US release, but it's intact in sequels Survivor 2, Dino Stalker and Dead Aim.
- Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles are more traditional arcade-style rail shooters.
- Sin and Punishment: Star Successor
- Super Scope 6 (a mini game collection that was originally packaged with the Super Scope)
- To the Earth
- Wild Gunman (a remake of an earlier, lesser known electromechanical game that used motion picture filmnote )
- Yoshi's Safari
Other:
- From the makers of Lazer Tag, the VHS-driven Action Max console. Games were score-based and played by firing the gun at flashing targets throughout each tape—And there were only five.
- Astro Blasters is a Disney Theme Park variation of this.
- Bio Crisis Return 2 The Lab, an upcoming Steam release Retraux Nineties style rail shooter modelled after light gun games of the era.
- While GUNbare! Game Tengoku 2 plays like a Vertical Scrolling Shooter, the second player can use the GunCon as light gun support.
- "Hero's Duty" in the movie Wreck-It Ralph is a sci-fi themed light gun game.
- The LCD Independence Day game was played with a wireless gun peripheral.
- Men in Black: Alien Attack at Universal Studios Florida is this in ride-form.
- The Sega Saturn port of Policenauts supported the Stunner light gun for the shooting segments.
- Snatcher on the Sega CD supported the Justifier light gun for the shooting segments.
