I fucking love Light Gun Games.
I have extremely fond memories at local arcades like Chuck E Cheeses or Malibu Grand Prix(rip) playing all sorts of light gun games. T2 The Arcade Game, Lets Go Jungle, fucking Time Crisis, I honestly consider myself real lucky for having places nearby that had some straight bangers.
If you know me though, you know what I consider the best lightgun franchise of all time
My fondest memories of the arcade was always House Of The Dead 2. I distinctly remember the sit down cab at my local Malibu Grand Prix. It had a curtain to prevent others from seeing the screen and I remember being with my cousins, playing the game blasting away the undead as my other cousins would try to scare us through the curtains. Good times. Honestly in hindsight I blame HOTD2 for my fascination for lightgun games and horror.
However, as much as I would like to talk about House Of The Dead, I think that would be saved in the backburner and talk about something a lil more general. There is honestly a lot of Horror Themed Lightgun Games. It makes sense, the on rails aspect of alot of Light Gun Shooters is good for House of Horror type scares and jumps. And I figured I would talk about a few that I always found interesting or good
This is a fairly interesting and one I would kinda consider Kusoge. Akuma Mortis Immortal is a stupidly rare game about trying to seal away demons with the power of cards and a gun. It was made by Gamewax(they will come up later), a small studio with only a few games under their belt and with a partnership with Taito, set to make this funny looking horror game hit the scene in 2005 alledgedly. I say alledgedly because nobody actually knows what happened. It had seemingly a public test or 2 before just disapearing, with only a few cabinets in the wild making it insanely rare and basically lost media for the longest time until earlier this year with the help of Video Game Esoterica(fucking king shit) made this game not only available to download but eventually had a fan got it to work on modern PCs. Was it worth it?
Yes
This game just looks bad. Like its from the mid 2000s and looks like a game from 1998. Everything looks so cheap. And the hilariously looking cropped jpgs of trees and such is just pure trash. Its all so garish and janky and honestly I think it makes it a lil more spookier because of it. The weird looking zombies and ghost all look awful and definitely arent gonna give an adult nightmares but if I saw this game with the janky animations with the zombies coming to the screen at a rapid pace with the loud noises as a child, it definitely wouldve given me a scare 2. Otherwise its a goofy good time, Ill leave a link to a video and download below
Heres an actual good one
CarnEvil is a fucking cult classic that you should play right now and is one of the best games to NEVER reach home consoles. Its a game about some dumbass going to a cemetary and spawning an entire evil Carnival and you go and shoot enemies ranging from Zombies to killer clowns to mimes, to Legaly Disntinct Jason Vorhees, to a giant fucking gigababy. This game is fucking nuts. Its full of weird funny moments and dark humor with an artstyle thats reminiscent of A Nightmare Befor Christmas which was named as an influence on the game. And like I mentioned the enemies and bosses are odd. More infamously the giant fucking gigabunny is actually censored to be a teddy bear if the arcade operator has the dipswitch on. Unfortunately this game never seen ANY kind of release outside of the arcade, which makes sense, it was running off 3DFX's hardware while also using a fuckton of FMVs which meant the game needed a harddrive. Theyre a pretty rare cabinet nowadays, I never even seen one in the wild nor at California Extreme which has fucking everything. But its not hard to emulate fortunately!
Imma keep it real, chiller is kinda whatever. Gameplay wise its probably the weakest game Ill mention as its really simple and honestly kinda boring. But the reason why everyone remembers it is because of the gore. For an arcade game in 1986, it is probabaly the gorest game to release at that time, only beaten by Splatterhouse which came out 2 years later. Youre shooting at people limbs while theyre one torture racks until theyre just a pile of meat and bones. Its pretty gnarly stuff and in that sense, really ahead of the time. There was even an unlicensed NES port for the game. It fucking sucks.
One of the things I was excited for when I got a Sega Saturn and the Fenrir ODE was the oppurtunity to play all the amazing games for the system, alot of which were Japan Only. Baroque, Elevator Action Returns, all the fucking amazing arcade ports from Capcom, theres lots of good stuff on that system that we never got
Death Crimson is not one of them
This is one of the lesser known games I will mention here as it was only released in Japan and didnt do too well. Death Crimson without a doubt, is one of the worst fucking games I have ever played, no hyperbole. The audio sucks, the graphics suck, the menus fucking suck, this game literally does not well. And I find it one of the most interesting pieces of shit I ever had the pleasure of playing. Theres a story to this extremely bare bones on rail lightgun game, involving people finding treasure and a gun name crimson that somehow causes demonic creatures to come out and attack people. Youre not gonna get a whole lot of story in this game, not that you would want to as visuals look like an actual mess. Its made up of really simplistic barely animated enemies and giant reticles that look so outta place. The aforementioned Crimson gun has a meter where it triggers a special shot that seemingly changes between levels, sometimes a powerful shot, sometimes its screenclearing. Its kinda like Akuma Mortis Immortal but that game is actually kinda good. This game fucking sucks I really cant stress it. AND I FUCKING LOVE IT. I love games that are just so bad theyre just amazing to look at how they fail. And I guess this why the game actually has had a really funny cult following.
Ill link it below but theres a really fascinating article by the Bad Game Hall of Fame detailing the history of the game and more but the thing I wanna talk about here is one of the funniest things I ever heard. Apparently Japanese Saturn Gamers found the game as funny and bad as I did, and would buy copies of the game and Saturn consoles, put the game in the Saturn, and would physically glue the console shut, making Death Crimson the only game playable. These were called Death Saturns and theyre the most cruel gift I can imagine. Despite a cult following, this game didnt do all that well, but apparently the developers, Ecole didnt let that deter them...
Death Crimson 2 is also kinda bad but in a more enjoyable normal way. Its actually kinda good honestly? This sequel plays closer to House Of The Dead, going for a more haunted house, jumpscare on the rails shooter. Its not scary but it makes the game feel STUPIDLY fast. I love how it feels. The gameplay is legit the best thing about this game, as the visuals are fucking dogshit. Enemies and characters actually look recognizable and are animated...barely, theres a couple instances of A Posing Models during cutscenes which is kinda funny. The enemies are varied, going from middle eastern dudes with swords, robot looking things, giant fucking bugs and skeletons. None of them look like they fit in literally any of the levels and the bosses are also just as odd. Despite how bad this game looks, like I mentioned it plays fucking great compared to the original. Go check it out. Its goofy kusoge fun.
Dead Space always been one of my favorite horror IPs. The combination of The Thing body horror inside the ship from Event Horizon was a great spookly time with tons of wonderful scares and gore. Despite that, I feel the sequels arent as strong and the spinoff Dead Space Extraction was a better continuation(although it is technically a prequel) to the original game. Instead of controlling Issac Clarke in third person, youre a guy named Nathan Clarke shooting the hordes off necromorphs as you explore the Ishimura in first person in an on rails lightgun game. Sounds strange but its a great transition honestly as some scares are maybe more effective. The game even carries the same limb mechanic, making it a less spray and pray experience compared to other lightgun games.
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