With Target: Terror announced for the Wii, we realize now there's really no limit to what terrible shooting games publishers are willing to port, no matter how dated its visuals. As much as we miss the Friday nights from our high school years spent hanging out at bowling alleys and movie theaters ogling girls who had no interest in us whatsoever, we don't miss the crappy games that usually populated those nostalgic spots.
Still, we suspect that we'll see a lot more of these late 90s light gun games on our fair console. What shooter are you dreading hoping to play with your Zapper? Area 51? Virtua Cop? Mad dog Mcree?!
Even with its folding clutch and laser sight (requires 2 x AAA batteries, not included), the WiiMAX isn't impressing anyone. Actually, those two selling points only add on to our suspicions that this light gun was assembled out of whatever plastic bits were available in the factory. That front grip? Leftover umbrella handles. The attachable scope? Grabbed from a surplus of toilet paper holders.
Is there even a purpose for that folding handle? How are you supposed to pull the Wii remote's trigger if you're holding onto the grip? And whose idea was it to price this crapcessory at $21.17? Bring a roll of TP past the break for more photos of the WiiMAX.
Sega's House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return actually has something new to offer, other than "being on the Wii" and "different crosshair shapes!" Sega has added an Extreme Mode to House of the Dead 3, which adds new player abilities and ramps up the difficulty -- perhaps to an extreme degree?
Enemies move more quickly and the shotgun's blast radius is smaller. But in order to balance the increased difficulty, the player has been given a new attack. You can now press A to perform a melee attack that not only knocks enemies away, but also blocks attacks and projectiles.
I didn't see The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return at GDC -- and I looked -- but Gamespot got a hands-on preview of the new release of Sega's light gun classics. Had I been there, I would have asked about the captioning. "Suffer the same way G did?" The audio's the same (from what can be heard on the video) so why the change in captioning? And why just that line?
In addition to rewriting Zeal's big line, Sega has added six different crosshair options and online rankings. What hasn't been added, unfortunately, is The Typing of the Dead. How could anyone do this?
Not much can compare to some good old-fashioned zombie shooting. Add a space station and a light gun to that formula, though, and you're guaranteed to come away with something special.
Siliconera's Spencer Yip, the lucky guy, got to try his hand at Forbidden Terror on Space Station Z at the Game Developers Conference. While we'd like to say we aren't brimming with envy, that would be a flat-out lie. This may not be the next "Game of the Year" (although it will be in our hearts), and it's actually not even a game (just a tech demo, unfortunately). Yet, it involves shooting zombies in space -- and at the end of the day, that's all we really want in life.
As if that wasn't enough, we're completely smitten by the title of Forbidden Terror on Space Station Z. Why is terror forbidden? Our own Eric Caoili suggested that they might be attending an intense seminar at the space station on getting over their fears.
While there wasn't much to the demo, Spencer described it as "amusing" and "pretty entertaining." Unfortunately, it may never actually turn into a full-fledged game. Spencer asked Emergent Technologies if they would consider releasing this for Wii Ware, however, and they seemed willing if they could work something out. Here's hoping!
How could anyone do this? Oh, probably with a capture card or something. We've loaded our gallery up with new screens of The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return, and we feel like we should give two warnings. First, if you haven't completed both games, these screens can be considered spoilers. Not so much of the storyline, but of some of the enemies faced later in the game. That shouldn't be too much of a big deal, since they're old games and it kind of doesn't matter what you're shooting at.
The other warning is that these screens are bloody and gross and stuff. On account of all the zombie ichor. This is especially true of the House of the Dead 3 screens. It seems that Sega figured that the semi-cartoony graphic style of the third game would counteract the disgustingness. They were wrong! Some of those zombies are nasty.
We should have better sense than to get all worked up over more ports, but we are so excited about The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return. The games look exactly like the arcade versions, with the obvious addition of the targeting reticule; you can choose to take that as arcade accuracy or laziness. Since we're in a good mood and really love the games, we're going to call it the former.Ghost Squad proved that a ported Sega light gun game could be better than most original Wii games, and we are therefore pretty eager for more of that.
In addition to a load of unaltered Houses of the Dead, the trailer reveals a set of -- what else? -- training-based minigames; before you set your Wiis on fire in anger, you should know that these are basically smaller challenges based on parts of the games' levels. You're still shooting zombies.
The Wii Remote is not a light gun. That's not a criticism of the thing -- just a statement of fact. The technology is different. But it's similar enough that developers have started putting light gun games on the system, and that Nintendo has encouraged this with the development of a handle that makes the thing feel faintly more gun-like.
For those of you who have played Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, or Ghost Squad, or Link's Crossbow Training, or certain parts of both Rayman Raving Rabbidsgames, or just done some really fast web browsing, we'd like to know: do you find the Wiimote to be up to the task of simulating a traditional gun controller? Have you tried it with and without a gun shell? This is the first time that a system's default controller could also be used as a light gun, so it is potentially important to the future of the genre!
We personally love playing Ghost Squad with the Wiimote, even without a shell. The accuracy is more than adequate for our admittedly terrible shooting skill, and we have never suffered from any kind of Wiimote-related problem in our shooting.
The Wii Game Blaster seems to get just about everything wrong with its design:
It looks more like a handheld vacuum cleaner than a firearm. Zombies would guffaw at the sight of it in between their attempts to lunge at you and gnaw on your arm.
The shell uses the nunchuck's buttons as the trigger, not the Wii remote's B-button. You might as well not use a Zapper at all, shooting at the screen with finger guns instead.
Because most of the weight is in its barrel, you would need wrists of steel to hold the piece up with one hand for any longer than five minutes.
It does have an advantage over the Zapper and other similar peripherals, however, as its frame hides the wires that connect the nunchuck with the remote. Whether or not that innovation justifies the $35 dreamGear charges for the product is debatable. Here is a quick dramatization of how that debate would go:
"Is this Game Blaster worth--" "No."
Despite its faults, the Game Blaster manages to fulfill the sole requirement we have for every light gun shell: Can we act out the Terminator 2 chase scene with it? You know which one we're talking about, when Edward Furlong is on his dirt bike, trying to get away from the T-1000. Arnold Schwarzenegger rides in to rescue the kid, firing away with his shotgun. Remember that? Well, you don't have to; we've pasted it past the break!
Third-party accessory manufacturers have been rushing out their Zapper-esque controller shells as fast as they can manage, hoping to cash in before Nintendo's official product dominates the market. This newest variation to the light gun lineup, Dragon's Sparkling Vibration Gun Controller, claims to add some extra kick to your shots with its "mega vibration."
Requiring only $9.95 and a pair of AAA batteries, it sounds like a good deal, but is anyone actually looking for more rumble with their Wii games? And what's with listing "Exciting" and "Fantastic" on the packaging's bulleted list of features? Those aren't features! Who are they to state whether the peripheral is exciting or fantastic? We'll be the judge of that!
Try not to drop your convulsing pistol during the gunfight, and take cover past the post break for more photos of the shell's "cyber-looking design" (another exaggeration).
Along with releasing a boxart preview of its upcoming Wii Zapper (due 11/19/07), Nintendo also shed some light on its bundled game, Link's Crossbow Training, earlier today. The shooter will have 27 stages in total over three different modes -- Target Shooting, Defender, and Ranger -- all of them multiplayer, but played one at a time.
Target Shooting plays as expected, asking you to hit bull's-eyes as they pop up and move around the screen. Defender pits you against a variety of enemies charging towards you from all directions; you can to aim off screen to turn Link and face your attackers. While playing in the Ranger mode, you can actually move Link by using the nunchuck's control stick, exploring and fighting your way through the different missions.
Blast past the post break for close-up shots of the Wii Zapper logo and the Link's Crossbow Training bit.
Brando's latest accessory beats Nintendo to the punch, copying the official Zapper's submachine-gun design and allowing users to detach the nunchuck handle from its pistol shell. The 2-in-1 Combined Light Gun is a bit expensive at $18.00, and it doesn't come bundled with anything like Link's Crossbow Training, but it's still a pretty slick idea. Bring your complaints about gun-shaped controllers past the post break for more watermarked photos of the plastic pistol.
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