GOTD 5/16/2016: Gunfighter (PS1)

[celerystalker]

Gunfighter: The Legend of Jesse James is a light gun shooter from Ubi Soft and Rebellion on the original Playstation. Set in 1870 in the Missouri Territory, it tells a fictitious tale about Jesse James and his adventures. Starting in a saloon, it follows Jesse pursuing wealth and saving friends through the desert, mines, and back into town to take down the corrupt sheriff. Using Namco's Gun-Con, you must gun down outlaws, bandits, and henchmen in the pursuit of justice within tight time limits.

There are three main modes to play: story, arcade, and sub-games. Story mode is what most would consider arcade, as it allows you to play all five levels in order as long as you can do so within a handful of continues. Arcade mode is what most would call a practice mode, where you can select any level reached in story mode and attempt to play solely that stage. The sub-games are simply shooting gallery mini-games unlocked by beating each stage in story mode, meaning there are five to unlock. Story is, of course, the meat of the game, as the rest is just window dressing.

Jesse has four aces (playing cards) representing his life bar. He can recover aces by shooting cans in the background, and can gain extra time by clearing sections of levels and by shooting clocks or watches in the background. It is a cover-based shooter, so you must pop out from behind obstacles to quickly gun down enemies. By default, you stay down until you hold a side button on the gun, but this can also be reversed to automatically stand, with button presses causing you to duck, which is beneficial for more aggressive players. This all works well so long as you've calibrated your gun correctly, as the Gun-Con is as always a very good gun controller. It is tough, though, especially due to the strict time limits to clear each section. You also at times get to do little bonus actions like shooting a noose to save a hung friend or mounting a gatling gun for variety, but the bulk of the game is very much a duck and cover affair.

Graphically, Gunfighter is not as crisp as Virtua Fighter or Time Crisis, and features a lot of dark, brown-tinted environments. It's not pretty, but the characters are at least polygon models as opposed to digitized sprites or sloppy FMV, so it feels pretty good. The music is suitably western, maybe a little spaghetti western in influence, but it fits the tone despite being pretty average. Overall, the production values work together pretty well, though I found that it works better with the brightness turned up a bit, as is the case for many darker light gun games.

I like Gunfighter, as its western theme is a nice change from the modern settings in most of my favorites. It's far from perfect, but it is a nice little gun game for the system after you've played the hell out of Time Crisis, Elemental Gearbolt, and everybody's favorite, Puffy no PS I Love You, the Puffy AmiYumi shooter... and it costs very little.

Played it?

[Az]

I've been on a light gun gaming binge here lately and picked up this and it's PS2 sequel about a month ago. Definitely a pleasant surprise on both of them, playing exactly like Time Crisis set in the Old West. I liked them both much more than Endgame for the PS2 since they seemed much more inspired or original than it was.

For some reason I had always confused this with a completely unrelated PS1 Western game (Lucky Luke or something) and always assumed it was garbage until I saw it listed as a Guncon compatible game.

[celerystalker]

I've been on a light gun gaming binge here lately and picked up this and it's PS2 sequel about a month ago. Definitely a pleasant surprise on both of them, playing exactly like Time Crisis set in the Old West. I liked them both much more than Endgame for the PS2 since they seemed much more inspired or original than it was.

For some reason I had always confused this with a completely unrelated PS1 Western game (Lucky Luke or something) and always assumed it was garbage until I saw it listed as a Guncon compatible game.

Yeah, when I bought my copy of this game, it wasn't a targeted pickup or anything. It was one of those days where I was at a game store in a mall, and was having trouble finding something interesting, so I just started reading the backs of cases. I saw the Gun-Con compatability coupled with a $6 price tag, and figured it'd be at least kind of fun. It turned out way better than I'd hoped!

[Kwyjibo]

This looks pretty good, but unfortunately I only have a Konami compatible gun for the PS1(a Performance Light Blaster). I think I'm going to get a Super Cobra and sell thing because it's not very good.

The PS2 sequel never got an NTSC release, right? I searched for a while and that was the conclusion I came to.

[celerystalker]

This looks pretty good, but unfortunately I only have a Konami compatible gun for the PS1(a Performance Light Blaster). I think I'm going to get a Super Cobra and sell thing because it's not very good.

The PS2 sequel never got an NTSC release, right? I searched for a while and that was the conclusion I came to.

As far as I knew, Gunfighter II was a European exclusive.

[Az]

As far as I knew, Gunfighter II was a European exclusive.

That's correct, however it is compatible with a generic PAL to NTSC program or has a PAL/NTSC selector patch (by Paradox I think). It does have the screen adjustment menu in the options, so you can center the screen without having a huge black bar at the top. With a centered screen the game is perfectly playable and doesn't put any targets in areas that are cut off after adjustment.

FYI the PAL version of Guncom 2 aka Death Crimson OX+ does not have any screen adjustment options, so you're better off sticking with the Japanese release for it.

[celerystalker]

Thanks for the good info! I haven't done much in the way of PAL on PS2 yet, so it's good to know it would be an easy one. Death Crimson... I have 2 and Ox on Dreamcast, but haven't tried Ox+. Any significant improvements? I loved the option in 2 to use the microphone to make your own sound effects.

[Az]

Thanks for the good info! I haven't done much in the way of PAL on PS2 yet, so it's good to know it would be an easy one. Death Crimson... I have 2 and Ox on Dreamcast, but haven't tried Ox+. Any significant improvements? I loved the option in 2 to use the microphone to make your own sound effects.

I've got the US Dreamcast version of Death Crimson OX but unfortunately haven't played it enough to tell what differences OX+ has. From what little I saw it looked like the JP PS2 version would be perfectly playable to Westerners who don't know Japanese, but I only stuck it in to try it out and only saw the first few minutes of gameplay. I did however dig out my old Saturn copy of Death Crimson and yeesh..... it's bad.

This looks pretty good, but unfortunately I only have a Konami compatible gun for the PS1(a Performance Light Blaster). I think I'm going to get a Super Cobra and sell thing because it's not very good.

I have an empty dedicated Sammy Turkey Hunting USA arcade cabinet I bought in a group of cabs last fall that I've been debating on what to do with. I decided to put one of the spare PS2's I've got along with a HDD and use specifically for PS2 shooters. Since I started working on it I've picked up a few extra Playstation compatible guns and I can definitely vouch for one that's currently being sold new on eBay. It's called the Yobo Shooter, it's orange and looks similar to a Guncon 2. It has a faint rumble (not recoil!), auto fire & reload, has a 3.5mm headphone jack to use with 3rd party Time Crisis pedals, and best of all is compatible with all Justifier, Guncon, and Guncon 2 games. For $15 brand new it really can't be beat and I'd definitely recommend buying one (hell, I bought 2!). There's so many guns and variations on them it's extremely nice to have one that covers every gun game on the PS1 & PS2. I've ran into zero problems with this on every PS1/PS2 game I've played with it. The cord is just a few inches shorter than a Guncon cord, and I noticed on one TV I have to sit just a tad closer than I do with my original Guncon, but that's really all the negatives I can think of for it.

A gun with good quality recoil would be nice, but I'm not dropping $150 on a Namco arcade pistol plus the price of a sacrificial Guncon 2 and a power supply just for fancy-pants recoil.

I managed to grab copies of pretty much every lightgun game for PS1 and PS2 that I didn't already have, along with a few other oddball Playstation guns, but I guess that's a different thread altogether. A big round of raspberries to Namco for their handling of PS2 gun games in North America, and an even bigger one for introducing the Guncon 2 to start with. TTHHHBBBTT!

[goldenband]

I played through this one with a control pad a couple years back. I found it pretty easy -- I think I beat it on my second try, and cleared the other modes shortly thereafter -- but reasonably fun. It's the kind of video game junk food I enjoy.

BTW it was one of the first PlayStation games I ever got, but it took me nearly a decade to sit down and actually play it! It came with the used PlayStation I bought at a yard sale, which had the FMV skip problems typical of early models, so I think that put me off for a while.

[Kwyjibo]

I've got the US Dreamcast version of Death Crimson OX but unfortunately haven't played it enough to tell what differences OX+ has. From what little I saw it looked like the JP PS2 version would be perfectly playable to Westerners who don't know Japanese, but I only stuck it in to try it out and only saw the first few minutes of gameplay. I did however dig out my old Saturn copy of Death Crimson and yeesh..... it's bad.




I have an empty dedicated Sammy Turkey Hunting USA arcade cabinet I bought in a group of cabs last fall that I've been debating on what to do with. I decided to put one of the spare PS2's I've got along with a HDD and use specifically for PS2 shooters. Since I started working on it I've picked up a few extra Playstation compatible guns and I can definitely vouch for one that's currently being sold new on eBay. It's called the Yobo Shooter, it's orange and looks similar to a Guncon 2. It has a faint rumble (not recoil!), auto fire & reload, has a 3.5mm headphone jack to use with 3rd party Time Crisis pedals, and best of all is compatible with all Justifier, Guncon, and Guncon 2 games. For $15 brand new it really can't be beat and I'd definitely recommend buying one (hell, I bought 2!). There's so many guns and variations on them it's extremely nice to have one that covers every gun game on the PS1 & PS2. I've ran into zero problems with this on every PS1/PS2 game I've played with it. The cord is just a few inches shorter than a Guncon cord, and I noticed on one TV I have to sit just a tad closer than I do with my original Guncon, but that's really all the negatives I can think of for it.

A gun with good quality recoil would be nice, but I'm not dropping $150 on a Namco arcade pistol plus the price of a sacrificial Guncon 2 and a power supply just for fancy-pants recoil.

I managed to grab copies of pretty much every lightgun game for PS1 and PS2 that I didn't already have, along with a few other oddball Playstation guns, but I guess that's a different thread altogether. A big round of raspberries to Namco for their handling of PS2 gun games in North America, and an even bigger one for introducing the Guncon 2 to start with. TTHHHBBBTT!

Interesting. After searching for a bit, this ended listing is all I can find on this gun: http://www.ebay.com/itm/yobo-gamewar...p2047675.l2557


I suppose I could message that seller and see what they want to sell it for. How does it compare to the GunCon 2? For example, in Vampire Night under the challenges there is one where you have to shoot the bullseye on the blocks before the time runs out(game 10). It requires a lot of precision and accuracy to pull off at level 3.

[Az]

Interesting. After searching for a bit, this ended listing is all I can find on this gun: http://www.ebay.com/itm/yobo-gamewar...p2047675.l2557


I suppose I could message that seller and see what they want to sell it for. How does it compare to the GunCon 2? For example, in Vampire Night under the challenges there is one where you have to shoot the bullseye on the blocks before the time runs out(game 10). It requires a lot of precision and accuracy to pull off at level 3.

That's the one, although I didn't buy it from that seller. There's a few US sellers selling it new on eBay but they never refer to it by it's name or model. If you search for Guncon 2 just check the new condition auctions and you'll see the one I mean. I think one seller is priced at $17.99 and the other a dollar more or less.

I was actually surprised by how accurate it was. I figured it'd be a wonky piece of garbage with poor aiming. For example on the yellow Guncon calibration screen where it shows the cursor sight I have a few guns like the Panther V where the sight constantly shakes and jitters, proof of a low quality light sensor, but the Yobo gun does just fine.

I have one TV where I noticed I have to move maybe 3 inches closer to the TV when using it versus a real Guncon 2; I might have to sit with my butt on the edge of the couch rather than all the way back. However on the other TV it doesn't do this, with the PS2 oriented level with the TV I'm able to stand the full length of the cord away without that issue.

That gun also has a B button on the grip so in cover shooter games like Time Crisis (especially PS1 games) you're not forced to hold the gun with 2 hands if you don't have a foot pedal.

And to not diverge totally off topic, if you aren't lucky enough to have a foot pedal it was awesome that like the Time Crisis games Gunfighter also lets you step on the player 2 controller as a makeshift cover pedal. Now you can actually get some use out of those old digital controllers or dance pads gathering dust in your closet.

[Kwyjibo]

And to not diverge totally off topic, if you aren't lucky enough to have a foot pedal it was awesome that like the Time Crisis games Gunfighter also lets you step on the player 2 controller as a makeshift cover pedal. Now you can actually get some use out of those old digital controllers or dance pads gathering dust in your closet.

I just tried it in Time Crisis 2 with my Pelican PS2 steering wheel, and the brake and gas pedals work for cover pedals as well

I think I'm going to stick with the GunCon 2 for PS2 and try to get the version of the Nyko Super Cobra that works for both PS1 and Sega Saturn. I need a Saturn light gun anyway. That model is less common, especially the one with the AV plug, but they pop up from time to time. If it only it had Dreamcast support as well, then I'd be set.