What is the best light gun game

After watching Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013 quick look, I really want to play a good light gun game WITH a light gun. I found lots of games on Wii but I don't know how well they work with the Perfect Shot or something more ridiculous. Do any light guns actually have a secondary function for reloading? I know the PS3 Sharp Shooter has a reload button on the bottom...

And yes I understand how stupid these controller shells are...but it would still be funny to have one in my game collection.

God, I haven't played a light gun game since the NES days. I thought about trying Link's Crossbow Training, but backed out. I think the "good" requirement you put on this request may be hard to satisfy.

I always liked Area 51.

House of the Dead 2,3 and 4 and Time Crisis 2,3,4 and Crisis Zone are all favorites of mine.

House of the Dead: Overkill.

Debate me.

The light gun genre is pretty spotty. I guess Duck Hunt at least isn't aggressively bad.

Starsky and Hutch was pretty cool on the original Xbox. One person drove the car, with a racing wheel if you wanted, and one person used a light gun to shoot stuff.

I haven't tried using a gun peripheral to play it, but that Dead Space Wii/Move game, Extraction I think, is pretty great.

House of the dead.

Resident Evil: Dead Aim has some interesting ideas. It was ultimately very flawed, but I really enjoyed it. Far more so than any of the Wii ones.

Dead Space Extraction was fine. Had some truly terrible boss fights.

Time Crisis 2 and Vampire Night are both really the best console ports of arcade rail shooters.

If you can make it to ...just about any arcade that's left anymore, Let's Go Jungle is just dumb enough to be fun if you're playing with someone.

If you liked Carnevil, Frightfestland (Yes, that's actually it's name) just came out and is bad in the same ways Carnevil was. But there is a giant elephant boss randomly so yeah. Final boss is a let down though.

Dread Storm Pirates (Comes with Razing Storm which is bad) was actually pretty great. Has some House of the Dead 2 voice acting.

I will say the new Ghost Squad is actually really well done. The game is incredibly fair and rewards you for playing well the way House of the Dead 1 did.

Ya, know what? Just go play Typing of the Dead. Game is still the best rail shooter that isn't a rail shooter.

Area 51

I'll go with the first Point Blank, purely because of how much fun it was to play with a room of people all taking turns for high scores. Absolutely loved it.

I remember Die Harder from Die Hard Trilogy on the original PlayStation being pretty good.

I don't think playing a light gun game at home is ever really fun. Go to an arcade with a friend and put 5 bucks into Ghost Squad, LA Machine Guns, or Time Crisis and you'll have a much better (and probably cheaper) time.

Virtua Cop 2.

Because I played it enough that I could finish the arcade version with a gun in each hand without dying, to the everlasting adulation of my peers.

Police 24/7 - Early motion sensing where you had to weave out of the line of enemy bullets. House of the Dead 2 - Voiceacting :)

Time Crisis 2 is the goddamned pinnacle of the genre.

Time Crisis 1 is the superior product, playing as Richard Miller. Every other Time Crisis game was far too easy, had characters you didn't give a shit about and watered down Wild Dog into a recurring cameo boss role that made me feel sorry for him. Those original boss fights against him in the first game when he was deadly accurate and didn't rely on gadgets and traps were some of the hardest moments in gaming for me.

Time Crisis 2 had a cool clay-pigeon shooting mini-game.

@sir_gunblade said:

I remember Die Harder from Die Hard Trilogy on the original PlayStation being pretty good.

Loved that game too, brings back many memories.

Probably some kind of SAT trainer

I thought Police 911 was interesting at the time, but it was a god damn mess to actually play.

one with recoil/feedback.

I've always been fond of Time Crisis 3 and Silent Scope.

@Mendelson9 said:

After watching Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013 quick look, I really want to play a good light gun game WITH a light gun. I found lots of games on Wii but I don't know how well they work with the Perfect Shot or something more ridiculous. Do any light guns actually have a secondary function for reloading? I know the PS3 Sharp Shooter has a reload button on the bottom...

And yes I understand how stupid these controller shells are...but it would still be funny to have one in my game collection.

Your post makes it sound like you don't understand that light gun games no longer exist. Light gun games died when tube TV's stopped being mainstream. Shooters that use any sort of physical sensor are not light gun games. Light gun games probably won't come back until all TVs are running 240Hz.

@sir_gunblade said:

I remember Die Harder from Die Hard Trilogy on the original PlayStation being pretty good.

I absolutely loved that game. The shooter portion was one of the most fun I have had playing a light gun game. House of the Dead 2 on the Dreamcast was also pretty great.

@Soapy86 said:

I always liked Area 51.

I also loved Area 51...the arcade game right? I remember watching Nintendo anounce the Wii controler and the first thing I thought was, "Yes I can finally beat Area 51 when they port it." And then it was never anounced. It seams to obvious and easy to do Midway. I never wanted to use up all my quarters playing that game.

@Live2bRighteous said:

House of the Dead: Overkill.

Debate me.

Did you play the Wii version I saw a PS3 copy with move support on Amazon. Does anyone know how light gun games differ on Wii and PS3 Move?

Definitely House of the Dead 3. Zombie Sloth was dope.

@TyCobb said:

@Mendelson9 said:

After watching Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013 quick look, I really want to play a good light gun game WITH a light gun. I found lots of games on Wii but I don't know how well they work with the Perfect Shot or something more ridiculous. Do any light guns actually have a secondary function for reloading? I know the PS3 Sharp Shooter has a reload button on the bottom...

And yes I understand how stupid these controller shells are...but it would still be funny to have one in my game collection.

Your post makes it sound like you don't understand that light gun games no longer exist. Light gun games died when tube TV's stopped being mainstream. Shooters that use any sort of physical sensor are not light gun games. Light gun games probably won't come back until all TVs are running 240Hz.

I call it light gun games only because I don't know what else to call it. I'm just looking for games where you just shoot dudes and don't worry about moving around ( In this case House of the Dead: Overkill is in, Killzone 3 with Move support is out ). Is there another name for these games? The light gun page on Giant Bomb includes games like Overkill. I feel like the page should only include games that use a gun that interacts with the TV, but then what do you call the others. I feel like I should write to Jeff for him to talk about on Jar Time...but i'm no longer a subscriber right now.

Typing of the Dead.

But seriously, like a couple other people have said, 'light gun games' are pretty much impossible on modern hardware. Everything nowadays uses IR pointing like Wii, Move, and the Cabala's gun. That said, Sin and Punishment 2 gets my vote. It doesn't have a peripheral but it's actually a good game. Also I was at Dave & Buster's last week and played some House of the Dead 4 and it was pretty dope.

Edit: Although, since you move a character to dodge stuff in Sin and Punishment 2, it doesn't really fit the loose definition of light gun games. More of a Starfox style rail shooter. I think I've spent too much time thinking about this now.

@Mendelson9 said:

@TyCobb said:

@Mendelson9 said:

After watching Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013 quick look, I really want to play a good light gun game WITH a light gun. I found lots of games on Wii but I don't know how well they work with the Perfect Shot or something more ridiculous. Do any light guns actually have a secondary function for reloading? I know the PS3 Sharp Shooter has a reload button on the bottom...

And yes I understand how stupid these controller shells are...but it would still be funny to have one in my game collection.

Your post makes it sound like you don't understand that light gun games no longer exist. Light gun games died when tube TV's stopped being mainstream. Shooters that use any sort of physical sensor are not light gun games. Light gun games probably won't come back until all TVs are running 240Hz.

I call it light gun games only because I don't know what else to call it. I'm just looking for games where you just shoot dudes and don't worry about moving around ( In this case House of the Dead: Overkill is in, Killzone 3 with Move support is out ). Is there another name for these games? The light gun page on Giant Bomb includes games like Overkill. I feel like the page should only include games that use a gun that interacts with the TV, but then what do you call the others. I feel like I should write to Jeff for him to talk about on Jar Time...but i'm no longer a subscriber right now.

What you described are Rail Shooter s.

@FLStyle: Yeah, TC1 is arguably the only light gun shooter that requires any skill whatsoever. You can't lean on another player, and remember checkpoints? Had to do that shit right. Doesn't matter how many quarters you dump. And yes, classic Wild Dog did not mess around.

Light guns don't work on LCD screens, so know that. So you will be stuck with the crappy, gyroscopic/light sensor options if you don't have a CRT.

Virtua Cop 1+2 & Point Blank 2 were my favourites. Would love to play them again!

Only ones I ever liked were Duck Hunt back in the day and an arcade game that was at a local bowling alley that I went to as a kid that was based around Terminator 2.