Tag Archives: lightgun

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Sentinel

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It’s always interesting to explore games that have had a lousy critical reception over the years, because you can look on it as a challenge to “find the good” in what the game is offering.

Such was the case with Sentinel, a light-gun shooter for Atari 2600 that has had a somewhat frosty reception over the years. After a bit of getting used to the twitchy analogue controls in Atari Flashback Classics, however, I actually found this to be a surprisingly enjoyable game.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Operation Thunderbolt

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It wasn’t unusual to see lightgun shooters adapted to the 16-bit computers of the late ’80s and early ’90s. However, you didn’t tend to see a lot in the way of lightgun peripherals.

You did, however, see a lot of these games making use of mouse control to simulate aiming a gun. Some of these made use of a clear, obvious mouse cursor, allowing for precise aiming, albeit at the expense of a certain feeling of “authenticity”. Meanwhile, some, like Ocean’s solid adaptation of Taito’s Operation Thunderbolt, provided the interesting twist of making where you were aiming invisible until you fired — much like a “real” lightgun would behave.

While the ST struggles to provide a completely authentic arcade experience — particularly in the sound department, as always — Operation Thunderbolt is actually a pretty solid port, and its unusual aiming mechanics make it surprisingly satisfying and addictive to play, even today.

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Podcast

The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 14 – Point and Shoot

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Hello you! It’s time again for a new episode of The MoeGamer Podcast, featuring me — the Internet’s Pete Davison — and my co-host Chris Caskie of MrGilderPixels!

The MoeGamer Podcast is available in several places. You can subscribe to my channel on YouTube to stay up to date with both the video versions of the podcast and my weekly videos; you can follow on Soundcloud for the audio-only version of the podcast; you can subscribe via RSS to get the audio-only version of the podcast in your favourite podcast app; or you can subscribe via iTunes. Subscribe. Semicolons.

Or you can hit the jump to watch or listen to today’s episode right here on MoeGamer.

Continue reading The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 14 – Point and Shoot →

Essentials, Wii

Wii Essentials: Ghost Squad

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One of the things I find kind of interesting about how gaming culture in general has developed over time is how people feel about “arcade games”.

Back in the 8- and 16-bit eras of computers and consoles that I grew up with, the seemingly unattainable dream was to have “the arcade experience at home” — or, well, more accurately, an authentic arcade experience at home. This was kind of strange when you think about it, because a lot of home computer and console games already offered experiences of greater complexity, depth and duration than your average quarter-muncher, but still the dream persisted.

Once we got to a stage where our home gaming hardware was more than up to the job of providing an “arcade-perfect” experience, however, many people had become so accustomed to those longer, deeper experiences that the dream of “arcade games” kind of fell by the wayside for a significant proportion of the gaming audience. And consequently, I suspect a fair few people missed out on highly enjoyable cheese like Sega’s Ghost Squad.

Continue reading Wii Essentials: Ghost Squad →