Any light-gun fans out there?

Ah man that sucks. I hate the pedantry of that crap. It's clear they're plastic toys and not the real thing. Such a pedantic system.

 

I think that's one of the reasons it costs so much from zax amusement, the trouble to go through to get them is just a PITA

The decision was home affairs/border patrol/customs.

I'm not 100% clear on that requirement, I will speak to the firearms department tomorrow to try and get clarity on what I need to do to potentially get the gun or be allowed to get another one in the future.

Yeah it's very very pedantic, but as I've mentioned on a few threads on FB, I get it, I understand the need for it, even the gentleman I spoke to said he understands and all my points I raised were valid, however, the controls are there for a reason.. Which is really fair enough. It just really sux to happen!

I even got a free upgrade of the unit, it was supposed to be a clone, but it was upgraded to the original Namco

 

Fixed that for you.

 

I have recently been playing light gun games again. Fortunately House of the Dead 2 & 3 run natively in Windows 10 (minus widescreen resolution).

I’ve also had pretty good success with WII games in dolphin.

All of this is using an Aimtrak light gun.

Have had a bit of a muck around with various other emulators/games but the stuffing around is not worth the effort for me.

Anyone know of any good (old is fine) light gun games that run in Win 10? I tried Vcop2 but the game wont run in full screen and is a bit glitchy.

 

Have you tried firing up MAME? Heaps of lightgun games on that, all of which work with the AimTrak under Windows 10 (and Linux, and Mac).

 

That’s my next step. I tried epsxe and pcsx2 but didnt have much success. Didnt spend too much time on them, however I know MAME is a logical choice because there’s lots of games and aimtrak works.

 

I found a modern light gun game called Blue Estate on steam for $3.24 USD that works well with my aimtrak light gun for those that might want to try it.

 

Sinden must be close they've flicked a prototype out to LTT.

 

Indigogo pricing currently at AUD$145 for a single gun.

Feels steep, but I guess if it's going to keep old stuff alive on new displays well enough, I'm in.

 

People do baulk at these type of prices, but let's be honest one man band guys like this don't have the scale that say a retrobit or 8bitdo have so sometimes it's worth it. Even at that price this guy might go bankrupt (or he might be a scammer, but tbh the product has been in development so long now you'd be hoping he succeeds).

being that this gun would cover you'd hope anything you can emulate on a PC it suddenly looks like a bargain.

I can see myself (space poor) using this for Saturn and Dreamcast at the very least. What would be nice is some way to adapt the gun to retro consoles, but that'a whole other challenge though.

 

There's already existing commercial alternatives that cover PC/emulators already however, and they're around 1/3 to 1/2 the price. Admittedly they use the "legacy" infra-red setup, but honestly it's fast, accurate and fantastic.

Where I think Sinden has real potential is if it can scale to other systems (even if there's cost involved in the form of converters). There's demonstrations on PS1/PS2, but if they can get it to work on native XBox/DC/Saturn/PS3, all of which have traditional arcade light gun games, then I'm definitely in.

 

I'm not actually familiar with those but my understanding wasn't that they are fast, accurate and fantastic - maybe I need to look into it.

 

I'm talking about the Aimtrak units. These use WiiMote/PS3-Guncon style IR sensors and work out of the box for PC (PC ports/originals as well as emulators) and PS2. Re-calibration is occasionally needed, but the same is true of true Guncon lightguns and Wii style guns on PS1/PS2/PS3/Wii anyway.

They feel identical to genuine Guncons on CRTs. Enough so that I can use them with the cursor removed entirely.

Prices have gone up a little - without recoil they're now at USD$95, and with recoil at USD$120.

 

So I fired up Endgame on PS2 the other day which uses the cover mechanic the same as Time Crisis. Unfortunately it doesn't support using a controller as a pedal so my TC pedal wouldn't work.

I had a second pedal on order and was going to butcher a controller and make another pedal box but I also had a spare Gcon2 so did something different this time. a 3.5mm mono socket is soldered to the C button in the handle. the C button still works if you have no pedal connected. The new pedal has a 3.5mm plug the same as my other pedal so both pedals can be connected to either the gun or the controller box.

Time to clock some Endgame

 

for anyone thinking about this pedal mod i would say just go for it, i positively grinned like an idiot using it - it's really that cool.

 

I've still got one of the original Time Crisis guns from the PS1. It's black with a recoil action (solenoid) and a foot pedal.
The plan was to rip the guts out of it one day and install an AIMTrack in it. I'm not sure how i'd go getting the recoil action to work though, from memory it has a separate power supply. super cool though.

Some of the old light gun games Virtua Cop, House of the dead etc were actually released on PC. I have a collection of them somewhere from when i was going to build my CAB. There was a western called Mad Dog Macree too.

 

About 18 months ago I setup my Aimtrak gun and played Blue Estate (modern light gun game for pc), and HOTD 2 & 3 which was fun. Had issues getting Virtua Cop 1 & 2 running properly on Windows 10, but chances are there is a re-worked version of those games for Win 10.

Bit disappointed Time Crisis 5 never made it to PS4...

 

speaking of, Time Crisis on PS3 with move controllers is actually really good. Not light gun good but better than a lot of wiimote games.

 

I tried it years ago but it didn’t hit the mark for me. The ol Aimtrak gives me the right kind of feel though

 

I'm keen to get on the Sinden order list, but $240 (with recoil) stings a bit if it gets knocked back by customs.