The two I recall... Operation Wolf - Atari ST: Choppy and unstable (frequent bombs), but complete, and good fun T2 - Amiga: Shockingly good, a bit easier because it just threw less stuff at you, but did also support twin mice, a definite novelty.
I loved Lethal Enforcers (I & II) for the Sega Genesis. It was a blast. We had a 27 inch CRT and would play that game for hours. Playing standing up definitely improved your game rather than sitting on the couch. I also liked playing the T2:The Arcade Game with the Menacer on the Genesis as well.
Hey, Larry! Fancy bumping into you here, my dude! 😁 Speaking of Crypt Killer, the AVGN did an episode on it not too long ago, though I think he covered the Sega Mega CD version as opposed to the Saturn one. Still, just seeing the absolute horrendous mess it was brought back memories of my half-brother visiting when I was a kid and him bringing this beautiful disaster of a game along with him for us to play together in spite of my parents forbidding him because they thought it would give little Jolis nightmares. Ah, fun times, those were. 🤤
I miss playing Saturn Virtua Cop on our 52" Magnavox rear projector TV. The looks on my friends' faces when they walked into the living room were priceless 😄
Same, and House of the Dead! Although, back in those days, we could only hook our games up to the projection tv when our parents weren't home, because dad was so scared of the dreaded "burn-in." Luckily, I knew to just change the game up frequently if they had static images, lol.
@@Lost_n_Found_1 Lol. Dad would flip a shit about burn in from them vidya games... But then immidiately put football/baseball/hockey/basketball/your national sport here on the very same TV with the static score boxes, network logos, etc. That would of course burn right into the screen. Whoops.
the master system gun was truly superior to the nes zapper. It actually looked for the scan line giving full acess to the screen rather than crappy sprite flashing.
@@steel5897 I think a solid 2/3 of the NES library is played by exactly no one these days. There's just basically infinite forgotten bad/mediocre games.
I think the fact he threw in a Hacienda reference is due to the probably correct assumption that most of the viewers are in the age group that would have any clue what the Hacienda actually was. Also he included a couple of seconds of Blue Monday ,although it's a well known record, it's going to strike a few memory flashes in a certain age group of the generation that would have gone to the Hacienda and heard the record that hit the clubs just before the first rumbles of the Acid House cultural explosion actually appeared ,apparently overnight and suddenly everywhere. Happy, warm, innocent and nostalgic memories of a totally different way of life and interaction between us all.
I just realize rail shooters are like whack-a-mole. Modern arcades often have water gun rail shooters. (Ice man) man and Plants vs. zombies are common examples of that.
@@HappyBeezerStudios Yes. With water guns. I messed up the name a bit. Ice Man was supposed to be Plants Vs Zombies, but the company lost the right to the name. I think some cabinets still have the original name though.
Funnily enough revolution X on ps1 was my best friend's favorite game in grade school at the time even though we had twisted metal 2 and other games like resident evil 2 and such.
That's gotta be the first game where the player is discouraged because how the hell is the objective a good thing? Fuck Aerosmith, they're the aliens problem now.
This brings back memories of the Hit Squad version of Operation Thunderbolt on the Spectrum back in the 90s, I remember the POW women where topless in there.lool
I must admit, I was rather impressed by T2 on the Master System, but I am easily impressed by parallax effects, and the old black box could do them when it tried. Phaser support might have made it a bit of a classic. Space Gun was indeed a dreary mess, though.
Revolution X was also ported to the PC. A platform well known for its vast choice of light guns and other such input devices. To quote Aerosmith: "Remember, music is a weapon." To quote me: "Well, at least I only spend €1 on a copy on this steaming pile of stinkiness."
Wtf?! Revolution X is pretty cool. One of the very few games of its kind that basically enables you to destroy just about everything put in front of your face. The controls were also pretty good (played it on the SNES and later the arcade version). The weirdness is what makes the game! Your "rockets" are disks, what's not to love about that?!
Revolution X is one of my most played games on my home made mega-arcade cabinet. It's flat out fun. With a ridiculous premise, great scaling visuals, interesting set pieces, and pounding hard rock by Aerosmith. Up to 3 players!
Hahaha I remember renting Revolution X, being blown away by hearing the song "Ragdoll" coming out of my SNES! I also have a very vivid memories of playing in the school yard, pretending to throw silver and gold discs just like in the game.
Let's be honest here, Revolution X was a turkey even in the arcades. The only reason it got as much attention as it did was because Aerosmith was in the middle of their 90s renaissance at the time... (In case anyone wondered what exactly happened to them, they've spent the last few years as a Las Vegas residency act - a bunch of planned 50th anniversary stuff was scuttled by the pandemic, and unfortunately the odds of the band touring again are low due to age-related concerns...)
Wow, you have just aided me solving a childhood mistery arcade cabinet! Now I know it was a Taito Space Gun. We occasionally gathered with a few classmates after elementary school classes were over in an old poorly maintained pub nearby. Sipping soft drinks and playing on this kind of cabinet. I don't think it ever was monochrome, but the monitor looked to me like a green phosphor type like our home PC equipped with simple CGA graphics at that time. Now I know that the cabinet was just either malfunctioning (red and blue colors missing) or someone replaced the original color monitor with a green mono one. It was somewhat harder to recognize things on the screen because of this. So in the end it seems someone just being cheap ass on repair and maintenance. :) I don't remember the game controller though. Not even how playable the game was with it.
The version of that game that I'm familiar with had a big red and blue set of raygun looking ones that where fixed to the cabnet. a button on the side for bombs or something if I can recall? We had one at Nickle World Arcade, and I too was like "oh, THAT game!"
You know, one of my biggest regrets in life is not realizing Duck Hunt was a 2 player game until I was an adult. How did nobody I knew realize that? Somehow we all sat there and played one at a time.. Like morons.. Ugh.. Can you tell I'm bitter?
The not so humble Speccy triumphs again! Operation Wolf was stellar on the ZX Spectrum. It played superbly well, had plenty of enemies on screen and featured the big enemies. Overall markedly superior to the conversions on the other 8 and 16-bit micros.
I was the only kid in my neighbourhood who completed all four difficulty levels of the Master System version of "Operation: Wolf". This may be nostalgia talking but I still think it's up there with the original 8-bit "Sonic the Hedgehog" and of course "Wonderboy: The Dragon's Trap" for one of the best Master System games out there. I still remember learning to get the grenade placed in just the right spot that you'd hit the general's hitbox but not hit his hostage, one-shotting him. Good times.
Ahhh time crisis. Many evenings I spent playing the first one on ps1. I distinctly remember coming home after school, it was winter so it was darker than normal and it was too late to go outside, the glow of the CRT, low hum of the Ps2 (I had the ps1 copy but a ps2 to play it) it was bliss
New Order references are always welcome. (I think my brain had already made the same rhytmic connection.) Glancing back at our earlier electronic selves through a slightly-skewd lens, is absolutely your talent-set sir.
oh man... i used to play lethal enforcers and revolution x back in the day at an arcade. i knew the guy who owned the cabs and he let me "test" play them every day. he would come in about an hour or so before the place would open up so he could get the quarters out of the machines and fill up the quarter machines, but when he was getting the quarters out of a machine, he wouls always ask me if i wanted to play and would put a bunch of credits on the cab for me. there were a couple of those games i got really good at. lol
A couple of years ago I buyed a sega cartridge wich had a nice label with the name "Counter-Strike" and has the CS logo on it. Turned out to be the "Lethan Enforcers" but with the logo of CS on it. I'm not disapointed at all, it was a good purchase.
Really enjoyed the video.loved operation wolf and Thunderbolt. couldnt wait to play them in our local arcade when they appeared.so loud and great eye popping graphics
Operation Wolf on the NES is more tollerable if you play it with XTC's Uzi or Bandai's Hyper Shot. Both have a D-pad and action buttons to throw grenades :P Fitting to your challanged by technical limitations theme the Tiger ports of Virtua Cop and Area 51 would have fitted well^^
There was a NES Uzi hmm? Bandai's Hyper Shot sure is pricey now that more people know about it. I'm still collecting light guns, just got a Menacer and a LaserScope which is like a light gun for your head lol. :D
Funnily enough, when I saw this title I thought 'Oh god, Operation Wolf on C64 was AWFUL'. It was one of the few times I was allowed to choose and buy a game at Toys R Us, and I bought it based on the cassette case art and graphics promised alone. I'd no idea of the style of game it was having never seen it in the arcade, and just remember trying to move the cross-hairs with my Quicksilver joystick was misery. Must be the shortest amount of time I ever went from buying a game to never loading it up again.
I remember as a kid being really excited to find Beast Busters for my ST in a local games shop. I loved it so much in the arcade! Then I got home and loaded it up..... 😭🤦♂️ Another great video btw!
The SMS port of Space Gun was the first game that came to mind when seeing this video in my feed. The biggest enemy in that one is trying to keep your eyes open during that boring slog of a game. And damn that review was (rightfully!) scathing, LOL. Learned about Lethal Weapon on famicom from this video, appreciate the recommend! Some surprisingly decent unlicensed shooters on NES/Famicom, like "Master Shooter". Even "Crime Busters" is a pretty decent addition to the limited light gun library there. Try "Hit Marmot" for a laugh also- just what the hell is going on in that introduction/demo? lol
Good golly, I loved that T2 arcade game. Many a hard-earned quarter found its way into that machine. Glad I never tried to emulate the experience at home.
Beast Busters was amazing - saved up once and played it all the way to the end with buy-in credits - and was disappointed that it then looped back to the beginning.
3:05 "Beg, steal or borrow a copy of this game..." Well, behind the humorous tone of that sentence, there's quite a realistic statement! Those were the ways (besides, ahem, illegally copying) a kid could actually get a game. Even if you actually went to a store and bought it yourself, since you did that with mommy's or daddy's money, it still falls into the begging category...
So yeah, in 1996 my parents got me and my kid brother a Sega Saturn and a bunch of games. Virtual cop, daytona usa, virtual fighter 2, panzer dragoon zwei and..... Revolution X. Guess which one we played first? That said, the Aerosmith soundtrack sounded great on the saturn. The downside was it was short clips and they looped.
The DOS port of Operation Wolf was far and away the best, IMO, I'm surprised you skipped over it. As a child I couldn't distinguish it at all from the arcade version, graphically. Of course, I didn't have a DOS lightgun, but using a trackball to aim the cursor worked significantly better than arrow keys on a keyboard or a controller D-pad.
Just a heads up...Space Gun did come out on the PS2 and Xbox under the Taito Legends label. As far as I can tell it is arcade perfect and I believe you can use the Time Crisis guns which make it the absolute best port ever made. I don't think it's a fair comparison but there you go and of course it doesn't fit your parameters but if you likevthe game it should wash away all of those horrid Revolution X 16-bit interactions...they were terrible. The only way to play it is at an arcade cabinet, PlayStation, and Sega Saturn.
I really miss light gun games, it's just sad that they died out not on their own accord. Home light gun games went out with the demise of the CRT TV, and the Arcade cabinet ones, well, they died with the Arcades. So I honestly don't think that they ever really died out of popularity but instead were a victim of the changing times. As whenever you find one out in the wild somewhere, people are ALWAYS ready and willing to pump in a few quarters. As they kind of went full circle, first only being available in the Arcades, to being in your home, to again only in arcades or wherever you happen to find them. BUT I think we COULD be seeing somewhat of a resurgence of the light gun games, just in a slightly different, but still familiar form. With today's VR technology a lot of on rails shooters have come about and have seen a LOT of success bringing back that same light gun game excitement. Games such as Robo Recall, Space Pirate Trainer and Pistol Whip have seen pretty good popularity, even house of the dead style Zombie shooters like Arizona Sunshine, Death Horizon, Drop Dead Dual Strike and others. So I don't think "light gun" games and on rail shooters completely died out but just waited for the right time to come back swinging, or rather shooting...lol.
I think teaching bystanders to get out of the way is a good thing. A similar game today would have all the bystanders standing in the way recording video on their phones. I enjoyed this video massively. Though I grew up with the Master System and Mega Drive, I had no idea these dodgy arcade ports existed. I liked Safari Hunt just fine, and it came free with the console. Oh and those concerned senate members and their hearings on videogame violence. I think the best thing they accomplished was to educate old rich white men to the fact that videogames were not solely intended for use by the 12 and under crowd. I know Night Trap has nothing to do with this video, but I thought it was hilarious that most of the objections they had to that game seemed to be based on the mistaken idea that the object of the game was for the player to murder the early 90's jailbait. I may be wrong, but I thought the object was to stop the killer and save the 'innocent' young ladies.
I had Revolution X on the Genesis, and yeah it's no masterpiece, but it's far from unplayable, now the PC DOS version is trash that just would not run unless you had very specific hardware.
@@adamlane6453 same im not epileptic. It just gives me a headache lol. But I know a lot of people are affected by strobing light. So if even I find it kind of annoying and headache inducing it just makes me think something with a real condition might have an issue. So hope it benefits everyone.
I personally think that Revolution X arcade is a way better game than T2 arcade. T2 is cool, and is fun for the most part, but it is a quarter muncher. It is on purposely unfair in parts just to earn more of the players money. Revolution X Is more fleshed out with a few secrets, and more fair gameplay. Its cheezy, but I think it is an improvement over T2. Great vid either way!
When I finally saved up $90 to buy Lethal Enforcers on Sega CD, I was so happy! It was so much better than Hogan's Alley. It was also my first game to actually sport the MA-17 rating.
I am one of the weird ones that likes Generation X. I loved it in the arcade because the guns were very similar to the T2 guns. so similar in fact they were the T2 guns. Generation X was sold as a conversion kit for the Terminator 2 arcade cabinets. I stupidly bought the Genesis game after getting a Menacer and guess what... it didn't work like T2. while that kills the play-ability for me, it didn't kill my love for the game. Its T2 with cool music and your gun shoots CDs!!! that's pretty cool and i cant imagine a game being any more 90's. Lets also not forget the Pink justifier was only available via mail in offer.
I've never played any of these games in the arcade. I did once watch someone playing T2: the Arcade Game. He had a stack of tokens and was feeding another one (or two?) in every 10-20 seconds or so. That's the one thing I've always disliked about any type of rail shooters, it's literally impossible to shoot everything without getting hit yourself. I never had any consoles past the Atari era and never had any lightguns for any of my computers. In fact, the only lightgun I've ever used was the one attached to the Coleco Telstar Arcade, way back in the 70s, and all I got to do with that was shoot a moving block on the screen. And after a month or two, the gun didn't even work properly anymore. It would register a hit no matter where you pointed it, even if you covered the barrel.
It's not a port that I know of, and while I may be looking back on it through nostalgia glasses, I remember liking Gotcha! on NES, even though it's probably considered pretty terrible. It was a paintball CTF (Capture the Flag) game. I was pretty young when I found it for cheap at a flea market. It blew my mind that you could control the rails with the D-pad on a controller in the 2P port, lol.
I actually really liked Space Gun on the ZX Spectrum. It was vastly better than the Master System version which was surprising considering the ZX Spectrum was all but dead at the time.
Ah The Justifier. Probably the coolest light gun ever made, and one of the reasons we have the ESRB today. Part of my collection is all the games that led to the American video game ratings we know today.
Correction: Rail Shooters aren't light gun games. In some cases they made light gun versions. A rail shooter is like Operation Wolf, Revolution X, Terminator 2 Judgment Day, etc. This is basically an analog stick controlling the X-Y of a cursor. There is nothing sensing light. A light gun game like Duck Hunt, Time Crisis, Carnevil, etc. Is a photosensor sending a flash command to the console resulting in scanline changes in respect to refresh rate which the photosensor picks up in order to return a hit or miss. Later it would evolve into knowing exactly where the scanline was and therefore where you aimed (Duck Hunt or Hogan's Alley do not work like this). So while yes your perspective is "on a rail" , only the games controlling through a mounted gun without photosensor are rail shooters.
Operation wolf on nes was perhaps my worst ever nintendo 90s memory in my life, imagine being a kid, with a brand new nintendo, u only had smb and duck hunt for around a year then suddenly u get 2 new games and u were dreaming for a whole year about SMB2 or ZELDA or METROID and u get....OPERATION WOLF and TO THE EARTH....it was the saddest time of my life, from all the games, i was given these two stinkers, at least on the next time (a year later) i got me SMB 2 and 3 , snake's revenge, wrath of the black manta and dr mario and it was the best time ever.
Oh no man, I loved Evolution X, on playstation. The gameplay was insane you could destroy almost everything in a level. The more destruction the more points. Playing with a friend was essential to reach these perfect scores. Yeah the controls were slow, which meant you had to know each level by heart, and be smart as to what you could shoot. There were also tons of secrets if I recall, like specific stuff to shoot fast that would unlock ... things. Don't remember. Ahah good times. You was harsh on that game OP. Or maybe I just don't remember well and was indeed playing a turd game but was too young to get it. I should revisit it with emulation
I always felt light gun games were never that great on any home console until we saw Point Blank and also Time Crisis land on PlayStation. They were close to perfection.
The two I recall...
Operation Wolf - Atari ST: Choppy and unstable (frequent bombs), but complete, and good fun
T2 - Amiga: Shockingly good, a bit easier because it just threw less stuff at you, but did also support twin mice, a definite novelty.
I loved Lethal Enforcers (I & II) for the Sega Genesis. It was a blast. We had a 27 inch CRT and would play that game for hours. Playing standing up definitely improved your game rather than sitting on the couch. I also liked playing the T2:The Arcade Game with the Menacer on the Genesis as well.
If you do a follow up, Crypt Killer on the Sega Saturn, terrible port done by Konami themselves, almost as bad as the Japanese name for the game :D
'Ello you
Hey, Larry! Fancy bumping into you here, my dude! 😁
Speaking of Crypt Killer, the AVGN did an episode on it not too long ago, though I think he covered the Sega Mega CD version as opposed to the Saturn one. Still, just seeing the absolute horrendous mess it was brought back memories of my half-brother visiting when I was a kid and him bringing this beautiful disaster of a game along with him for us to play together in spite of my parents forbidding him because they thought it would give little Jolis nightmares. Ah, fun times, those were. 🤤
@@Jolis_Parsec You are thinking of Corpse Killer.
@@Boojakascha Yeah, I realized that after I posted it. Ah well, too late now. 🤷🏻♂️
I had Corpse Killer for Sega CD, what an awful game
I loved Revolution X as a kid.
“Music…is a weapon!!”
I miss playing Saturn Virtua Cop on our 52" Magnavox rear projector TV. The looks on my friends' faces when they walked into the living room were priceless 😄
Same, and House of the Dead! Although, back in those days, we could only hook our games up to the projection tv when our parents weren't home, because dad was so scared of the dreaded "burn-in." Luckily, I knew to just change the game up frequently if they had static images, lol.
@@Lost_n_Found_1 Lol. Dad would flip a shit about burn in from them vidya games... But then immidiately put football/baseball/hockey/basketball/your national sport here on the very same TV with the static score boxes, network logos, etc. That would of course burn right into the screen. Whoops.
the master system gun was truly superior to the nes zapper. It actually looked for the scan line giving full acess to the screen rather than crappy sprite flashing.
There's only one thing more enjoyable than seeing retro games:
Seeing the horrendously bad ones.
I love it
People only remember the good ones, and the bad ones that AVGN happened to cover. But that iceberg is way way deeper.
@@steel5897 I think a solid 2/3 of the NES library is played by exactly no one these days. There's just basically infinite forgotten bad/mediocre games.
I think that's the real reason we're all here, deep down, you know it. It's just soo....ewwwww
I think the fact he threw in a Hacienda reference is due to the probably correct assumption that most of the viewers are in the age group that would have any clue what the Hacienda actually was. Also he included a couple of seconds of Blue Monday ,although it's a well known record, it's going to strike a few memory flashes in a certain age group of the generation that would have gone to the Hacienda and heard the record that hit the clubs just before the first rumbles of the Acid House cultural explosion actually appeared ,apparently overnight and suddenly everywhere. Happy, warm, innocent and nostalgic memories of a totally different way of life and interaction between us all.
I just realize rail shooters are like whack-a-mole.
Modern arcades often have water gun rail shooters. (Ice man) man and Plants vs. zombies are common examples of that.
They made a PvZ rail shooter?
@@HappyBeezerStudios
Yes. With water guns.
I messed up the name a bit.
Ice Man was supposed to be Plants Vs Zombies, but the company lost the right to the name. I think some cabinets still have the original name though.
Wolly's Windmiill! Never thought I'd here such a specific 90's Great Yarmouth reference on here! Oh the memories...
I honestly didn't mind Revolution X on the SNES
Ah, the Master System Phaser! The memories! :)
Funnily enough revolution X on ps1 was my best friend's favorite game in grade school at the time even though we had twisted metal 2 and other games like resident evil 2 and such.
Revolution X: Aerosmith has been kidnapped by aliens or something
Me: so what's the problem exactly?
That's gotta be the first game where the player is discouraged because how the hell is the objective a good thing? Fuck Aerosmith, they're the aliens problem now.
Also, "Music is the ultimate weapon." Which means "Shoot CDs at everyone's face."
or just play Rag Doll over and over until they leave
beedle diddle daddle do bow wow wah wah
@@MrTaxiRob
Isn't that The Doors?
It really does sound like the intro to Blue Monday. It's one of those things that once you hear, you can't unhear.
"Using a controller feels like you are sloshing a fishing rod around in a dirty canal."
This brings back memories of the Hit Squad version of Operation Thunderbolt on the Spectrum back in the 90s, I remember the POW women where topless in there.lool
I must admit, I was rather impressed by T2 on the Master System, but I am easily impressed by parallax effects, and the old black box could do them when it tried. Phaser support might have made it a bit of a classic. Space Gun was indeed a dreary mess, though.
Revolution X was also ported to the PC. A platform well known for its vast choice of light guns and other such input devices.
To quote Aerosmith: "Remember, music is a weapon."
To quote me: "Well, at least I only spend €1 on a copy on this steaming pile of stinkiness."
Wtf?! Revolution X is pretty cool.
One of the very few games of its kind that basically enables you to destroy just about everything put in front of your face.
The controls were also pretty good (played it on the SNES and later the arcade version).
The weirdness is what makes the game!
Your "rockets" are disks, what's not to love about that?!
Nice BrutalMoose cameo at 0:17
ploop
That New Order joke caught me completely off-guard, good job =)
This video series is amazing. Looking forward to watching this one a bit later today.
Taito were genuinely great at cramming arcade cabinets into the SMS, my favourite developer for the system.
Operation Wolf was such a revelation when it came out in the arcades, good memories.
Revolution X is one of my most played games on my home made mega-arcade cabinet. It's flat out fun. With a ridiculous premise, great scaling visuals, interesting set pieces, and pounding hard rock by Aerosmith. Up to 3 players!
Hahaha I remember renting Revolution X, being blown away by hearing the song "Ragdoll" coming out of my SNES! I also have a very vivid memories of playing in the school yard, pretending to throw silver and gold discs just like in the game.
What's that soothing outro music? Sounds like the last thing we'll hear when AI's take over.
It´s the beginning part of Martin Luther Malcom X by Chinksey.
as long as it's not Aerosmith...
@@ProfessorProvocative awesome! Thank you!
6:51 - I love your commentary in this section. You should write action film one-liners. XD
Let's be honest here, Revolution X was a turkey even in the arcades. The only reason it got as much attention as it did was because Aerosmith was in the middle of their 90s renaissance at the time...
(In case anyone wondered what exactly happened to them, they've spent the last few years as a Las Vegas residency act - a bunch of planned 50th anniversary stuff was scuttled by the pandemic, and unfortunately the odds of the band touring again are low due to age-related concerns...)
Time Crisis on the PS1 was the nuts. GCon45 with an old non dual shock controller as a foot pedal. Excellent
I was kind of disappointed that Taito never released some Operation Wolf/Space Gun compilation on PS1, the GunCon would have been perfect for it.
Wow, you have just aided me solving a childhood mistery arcade cabinet! Now I know it was a Taito Space Gun. We occasionally gathered with a few classmates after elementary school classes were over in an old poorly maintained pub nearby. Sipping soft drinks and playing on this kind of cabinet. I don't think it ever was monochrome, but the monitor looked to me like a green phosphor type like our home PC equipped with simple CGA graphics at that time. Now I know that the cabinet was just either malfunctioning (red and blue colors missing) or someone replaced the original color monitor with a green mono one. It was somewhat harder to recognize things on the screen because of this. So in the end it seems someone just being cheap ass on repair and maintenance. :) I don't remember the game controller though. Not even how playable the game was with it.
The version of that game that I'm familiar with had a big red and blue set of raygun looking ones that where fixed to the cabnet. a button on the side for bombs or something if I can recall? We had one at Nickle World Arcade, and I too was like "oh, THAT game!"
Unfortunately I have no recollection of the controller.
3:50 "....sloshing a fishing rod around in a dirty canal"
Your talking about my childhood!
You know, one of my biggest regrets in life is not realizing Duck Hunt was a 2 player game until I was an adult. How did nobody I knew realize that? Somehow we all sat there and played one at a time.. Like morons.. Ugh.. Can you tell I'm bitter?
I remember playing Operation Wolf on my dads C64. We didn't have a light gun or mouse and we only ever got as far as the 2nd level.
slopping a fishing rod around in a dirty canal - love it
The not so humble Speccy triumphs again! Operation Wolf was stellar on the ZX Spectrum. It played superbly well, had plenty of enemies on screen and featured the big enemies. Overall markedly superior to the conversions on the other 8 and 16-bit micros.
I was the only kid in my neighbourhood who completed all four difficulty levels of the Master System version of "Operation: Wolf".
This may be nostalgia talking but I still think it's up there with the original 8-bit "Sonic the Hedgehog" and of course "Wonderboy: The Dragon's Trap" for one of the best Master System games out there. I still remember learning to get the grenade placed in just the right spot that you'd hit the general's hitbox but not hit his hostage, one-shotting him. Good times.
Ahhh time crisis. Many evenings I spent playing the first one on ps1. I distinctly remember coming home after school, it was winter so it was darker than normal and it was too late to go outside, the glow of the CRT, low hum of the Ps2 (I had the ps1 copy but a ps2 to play it) it was bliss
New Order references are always welcome. (I think my brain had already made the same rhytmic connection.)
Glancing back at our earlier electronic selves through a slightly-skewd lens, is absolutely your talent-set sir.
forever angry at my local Peter Piper Pizza for getting rid of Time Crisis for a bunch of (essentially) slot machines
Come on over! To Peter Piper Pizza.
@@MiTBender "Peter Piper tastes like a diaper!"
oh man... i used to play lethal enforcers and revolution x back in the day at an arcade. i knew the guy who owned the cabs and he let me "test" play them every day. he would come in about an hour or so before the place would open up so he could get the quarters out of the machines and fill up the quarter machines, but when he was getting the quarters out of a machine, he wouls always ask me if i wanted to play and would put a bunch of credits on the cab for me. there were a couple of those games i got really good at. lol
A couple of years ago I buyed a sega cartridge wich had a nice label with the name "Counter-Strike" and has the CS logo on it. Turned out to be the "Lethan Enforcers" but with the logo of CS on it. I'm not disapointed at all, it was a good purchase.
I killed four light guns for the Dreamcast playing House of the Dead 2. Fantastic game. You grow to love the beyond terrible voice acting.
Really enjoyed the video.loved operation wolf and Thunderbolt. couldnt wait to play them in our local arcade when they appeared.so loud and great eye popping graphics
Truly a missed opportunity: typing of the dead for zx spectrum.
Can you imagine.
Wow you really woke up and chose violence today...
Operation Wolf on the NES is more tollerable if you play it with XTC's Uzi or Bandai's Hyper Shot. Both have a D-pad and action buttons to throw grenades :P
Fitting to your challanged by technical limitations theme the Tiger ports of Virtua Cop and Area 51 would have fitted well^^
There was a NES Uzi hmm? Bandai's Hyper Shot sure is pricey now that more people know about it. I'm still collecting light guns, just got a Menacer and a LaserScope which is like a light gun for your head lol. :D
@@loganjorgensen The headset got pricy too after AVGN covered it 😅
@@Boojakascha I'm certain that's completely true, I know Jekyll & Hyde certainly went up because of The Nerd lol.
Do a sequel. I just got Sindens and LOVE hearing about these games
Funnily enough, when I saw this title I thought 'Oh god, Operation Wolf on C64 was AWFUL'. It was one of the few times I was allowed to choose and buy a game at Toys R Us, and I bought it based on the cassette case art and graphics promised alone. I'd no idea of the style of game it was having never seen it in the arcade, and just remember trying to move the cross-hairs with my Quicksilver joystick was misery. Must be the shortest amount of time I ever went from buying a game to never loading it up again.
3:58
“Snake, remember the basics of CQC”
2:18 "Vat actually worked in vhe favor for vose" was a real tongue twister for me
I have operation wolf on the Master System, and it was tough but I remember it being pretty good, but I struggled to ever complete it
I remember as a kid being really excited to find Beast Busters for my ST in a local games shop. I loved it so much in the arcade!
Then I got home and loaded it up.....
😭🤦♂️
Another great video btw!
I actually once saw a regular first person shooter at an arcade. You had the time limit and every time you killed someone you got more time.
The SMS port of Space Gun was the first game that came to mind when seeing this video in my feed. The biggest enemy in that one is trying to keep your eyes open during that boring slog of a game. And damn that review was (rightfully!) scathing, LOL.
Learned about Lethal Weapon on famicom from this video, appreciate the recommend! Some surprisingly decent unlicensed shooters on NES/Famicom, like "Master Shooter". Even "Crime Busters" is a pretty decent addition to the limited light gun library there. Try "Hit Marmot" for a laugh also- just what the hell is going on in that introduction/demo? lol
Good golly, I loved that T2 arcade game. Many a hard-earned quarter found its way into that machine.
Glad I never tried to emulate the experience at home.
Thanks for making this, your videos are quite enjoyable
Beast Busters was amazing - saved up once and played it all the way to the end with buy-in credits - and was disappointed that it then looped back to the beginning.
I still remember getting a funny look from an OAP when I was reading the copy of Amstrad Action with the light gun on the cover on a bus 🙂
C64 Op Wolf was great, but tough.
There are few new games in the genre these days, but one called Blue Estate back in 2016 was a pleasant surprise.
3:05 "Beg, steal or borrow a copy of this game..." Well, behind the humorous tone of that sentence, there's quite a realistic statement! Those were the ways (besides, ahem, illegally copying) a kid could actually get a game. Even if you actually went to a store and bought it yourself, since you did that with mommy's or daddy's money, it still falls into the begging category...
So yeah, in 1996 my parents got me and my kid brother a Sega Saturn and a bunch of games. Virtual cop, daytona usa, virtual fighter 2, panzer dragoon zwei and..... Revolution X. Guess which one we played first? That said, the Aerosmith soundtrack sounded great on the saturn. The downside was it was short clips and they looped.
The DOS port of Operation Wolf was far and away the best, IMO, I'm surprised you skipped over it. As a child I couldn't distinguish it at all from the arcade version, graphically. Of course, I didn't have a DOS lightgun, but using a trackball to aim the cursor worked significantly better than arrow keys on a keyboard or a controller D-pad.
Just a heads up...Space Gun did come out on the PS2 and Xbox under the Taito Legends label. As far as I can tell it is arcade perfect and I believe you can use the Time Crisis guns which make it the absolute best port ever made. I don't think it's a fair comparison but there you go and of course it doesn't fit your parameters but if you likevthe game it should wash away all of those horrid Revolution X 16-bit interactions...they were terrible. The only way to play it is at an arcade cabinet, PlayStation, and Sega Saturn.
Assume he means home consoles of the time but yes he could of put it better..
There was a wealth of FPS on the megaCD and 32X too
the master system version of T2 Arcade game is just a lazy port of the game gear version. hence the lack of lightgun support and tiny sprites.
Don't know if CABAL fits since it's each level is a static screen, but it was quite good on the c64 at least.
I really miss light gun games, it's just sad that they died out not on their own accord. Home light gun games went out with the demise of the CRT TV, and the Arcade cabinet ones, well, they died with the Arcades. So I honestly don't think that they ever really died out of popularity but instead were a victim of the changing times. As whenever you find one out in the wild somewhere, people are ALWAYS ready and willing to pump in a few quarters. As they kind of went full circle, first only being available in the Arcades, to being in your home, to again only in arcades or wherever you happen to find them. BUT I think we COULD be seeing somewhat of a resurgence of the light gun games, just in a slightly different, but still familiar form. With today's VR technology a lot of on rails shooters have come about and have seen a LOT of success bringing back that same light gun game excitement. Games such as Robo Recall, Space Pirate Trainer and Pistol Whip have seen pretty good popularity, even house of the dead style Zombie shooters like Arizona Sunshine, Death Horizon, Drop Dead Dual Strike and others. So I don't think "light gun" games and on rail shooters completely died out but just waited for the right time to come back swinging, or rather shooting...lol.
I think teaching bystanders to get out of the way is a good thing. A similar game today would have all the bystanders standing in the way recording video on their phones.
I enjoyed this video massively. Though I grew up with the Master System and Mega Drive, I had no idea these dodgy arcade ports existed. I liked Safari Hunt just fine, and it came free with the console.
Oh and those concerned senate members and their hearings on videogame violence. I think the best thing they accomplished was to educate old rich white men to the fact that videogames were not solely intended for use by the 12 and under crowd.
I know Night Trap has nothing to do with this video, but I thought it was hilarious that most of the objections they had to that game seemed to be based on the mistaken idea that the object of the game was for the player to murder the early 90's jailbait. I may be wrong, but I thought the object was to stop the killer and save the 'innocent' young ladies.
Revolution x was one of the few games i had growing up, i didnt much like it, but i played it enough that i did end up completing the game.
Revolution X was not a bad game. It was coin-eater but it was enjoyable.
Master System - Gangster Town was my favorite shooter
I had Revolution X on the Genesis, and yeah it's no masterpiece, but it's far from unplayable, now the PC DOS version is trash that just would not run unless you had very specific hardware.
Remember. Music is the weapon.
No Area 51? It might be the best rail shooter thats ever made
You might want to put a warning about those flashing screens throughout the video. Thanks.
I'm not strobe-sensitive, but I do have other sensory processing issues, and I appreciate you putting the message out there!
@@adamlane6453 same im not epileptic. It just gives me a headache lol. But I know a lot of people are affected by strobing light. So if even I find it kind of annoying and headache inducing it just makes me think something with a real condition might have an issue. So hope it benefits everyone.
@@adamlane6453 It's a video about video games, it's to be expected.
Pretty cool seeing how the console and computer ports compared to the arcade versions.
I personally think that Revolution X arcade is a way better game than T2 arcade. T2 is cool, and is fun for the most part, but it is a quarter muncher. It is on purposely unfair in parts just to earn more of the players money. Revolution X Is more fleshed out with a few secrets, and more fair gameplay. Its cheezy, but I think it is an improvement over T2. Great vid either way!
When I finally saved up $90 to buy Lethal Enforcers on Sega CD, I was so happy! It was so much better than Hogan's Alley. It was also my first game to actually sport the MA-17 rating.
I am one of the weird ones that likes Generation X. I loved it in the arcade because the guns were very similar to the T2 guns. so similar in fact they were the T2 guns. Generation X was sold as a conversion kit for the Terminator 2 arcade cabinets. I stupidly bought the Genesis game after getting a Menacer and guess what... it didn't work like T2. while that kills the play-ability for me, it didn't kill my love for the game. Its T2 with cool music and your gun shoots CDs!!! that's pretty cool and i cant imagine a game being any more 90's.
Lets also not forget the Pink justifier was only available via mail in offer.
I've never played any of these games in the arcade. I did once watch someone playing T2: the Arcade Game. He had a stack of tokens and was feeding another one (or two?) in every 10-20 seconds or so. That's the one thing I've always disliked about any type of rail shooters, it's literally impossible to shoot everything without getting hit yourself.
I never had any consoles past the Atari era and never had any lightguns for any of my computers. In fact, the only lightgun I've ever used was the one attached to the Coleco Telstar Arcade, way back in the 70s, and all I got to do with that was shoot a moving block on the screen. And after a month or two, the gun didn't even work properly anymore. It would register a hit no matter where you pointed it, even if you covered the barrel.
Sloshing a fishing rod in a dirty canal - Is that like hockey stick in a garbage can?
It's not a port that I know of, and while I may be looking back on it through nostalgia glasses, I remember liking Gotcha! on NES, even though it's probably considered pretty terrible. It was a paintball CTF (Capture the Flag) game. I was pretty young when I found it for cheap at a flea market. It blew my mind that you could control the rails with the D-pad on a controller in the 2P port, lol.
I actually really liked Space Gun on the ZX Spectrum. It was vastly better than the Master System version which was surprising considering the ZX Spectrum was all but dead at the time.
these rail games are the reason why I hit the reload button after shooting two shots when playing COD
Can't believe they got away with calling that unlicensed Lethal Enforcers port "Lethal Weapon", since there's a movie series called that.
worse yet: another NES game with that name. Some copies were called Lethal Enforcers too, both names were used.
Man Steals 12 Grams Of Arm And Hammer Baking Soda Gets Fined
Ah The Justifier. Probably the coolest light gun ever made, and one of the reasons we have the ESRB today. Part of my collection is all the games that led to the American video game ratings we know today.
Correction:
Rail Shooters aren't light gun games. In some cases they made light gun versions.
A rail shooter is like Operation Wolf, Revolution X, Terminator 2 Judgment Day, etc. This is basically an analog stick controlling the X-Y of a cursor. There is nothing sensing light.
A light gun game like Duck Hunt, Time Crisis, Carnevil, etc. Is a photosensor sending a flash command to the console resulting in scanline changes in respect to refresh rate which the photosensor picks up in order to return a hit or miss. Later it would evolve into knowing exactly where the scanline was and therefore where you aimed (Duck Hunt or Hogan's Alley do not work like this).
So while yes your perspective is "on a rail" , only the games controlling through a mounted gun without photosensor are rail shooters.
these rail games are the reason why I hit the reload button after shooting two shots when playing COD, for example.
Man, I forgot Space Gun in the arcades. Played that way too much
If the cyborgs on the Arcade version of Mechanized Attack were Poundland, I guess the ones on the NES were from the 33-cent store lol.
Me and my buddies were literally playing the 3 player Uzi action Beast Busters in a mini arcade 2 weeks ago
Wally’s Windmill? What a memory!
i actually remember playing the terminator 2 shooter on the gameboy…the many years later getting to play it on the actual arcade machine 🤩
Operation wolf on nes was perhaps my worst ever nintendo 90s memory in my life, imagine being a kid, with a brand new nintendo, u only had smb and duck hunt for around a year then suddenly u get 2 new games and u were dreaming for a whole year about SMB2 or ZELDA or METROID and u get....OPERATION WOLF and TO THE EARTH....it was the saddest time of my life, from all the games, i was given these two stinkers, at least on the next time (a year later) i got me SMB 2 and 3 , snake's revenge, wrath of the black manta and dr mario and it was the best time ever.
Great shout out with yakkity sax.
Oh no man, I loved Evolution X, on playstation.
The gameplay was insane you could destroy almost everything in a level. The more destruction the more points.
Playing with a friend was essential to reach these perfect scores.
Yeah the controls were slow, which meant you had to know each level by heart, and be smart as to what you could shoot.
There were also tons of secrets if I recall, like specific stuff to shoot fast that would unlock ... things. Don't remember.
Ahah good times. You was harsh on that game OP.
Or maybe I just don't remember well and was indeed playing a turd game but was too young to get it.
I should revisit it with emulation
"Less fun than wringing out your gran's pants" really belongs on a poster.
I always felt light gun games were never that great on any home console until we saw Point Blank and also Time Crisis land on PlayStation. They were close to perfection.