{"id":113,"date":"2021-02-28T13:14:29","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T17:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjj4.com\/?p=113"},"modified":"2021-03-09T22:01:36","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T02:01:36","slug":"the-nes-zapper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjj4.com\/?p=113","title":{"rendered":"The NES Zapper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I was very young, and the NES first came out, there were many mysteries that came out of the box alongside the system itself. I\u2019d heard rumors of how to get to \u201cMinus One\u201d world in NES.  (HERE<\/a> is a demo on how to pull it off\u2026after 35 years of trying, I finally pulled it off this morning.) I didn\u2019t understand how the Power Glove worked (hint: exact same way your phone lets you play Mario Kart). There were rumors of games that never came out, games that never WILL come out, and games that ended up being other games altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there was the greatest mystery of them all: how the fuck did the NES light-gun work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the 1\/3 of a reader out there who can remember back to my history of Nintendo article many moons ago, one of the businesses Nintendo was involved with prior to cabinet video games was the \u201cLaser Clay Shooting System\u201d: a skeet shooting setup based in old bowling alleys (bowling was apparently a HUGE fad in Japan in the late 60s, and died just about as quickly as it started, leaving bowling alleys open all over with no bowlers). This system projected flying skeet on a screen with a 16mm projector, and tracked lasers shot out of the simulated shotgun with a complicated system of mirrors and \u201cscored\u201d shots. It was apparently pretty good, and just expensive at a time where the Japanese economy fell apart during the OPEC oil crisis. It\u2019s not cheap keeping old bowling alleys open when everybody is broke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lightguns for cabinets or home systems weren\u2019t a new idea either\u2026they used a photo-diode (a light sensor) in\/on the barrel and aimed at bright spots of light. While clever, it also meant you could run up the high score just by pointing the gun at a convenient light and blasting away. The system would reflect everything as a hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Zapper didn\u2019t work on either of those systems. Nintendo didn\u2019t want something that could be cheated, and as a toy designed for home use and children, having a gun that shot actual lasers out of the end of it by a bunch of rowdy bored kids would have started the laser eye surgery revolution a decade early. That would probably lead to lawsuits, and Donkey Kong money wasn\u2019t going to cover all of them. As a result, Nintendo came up with a completely new system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original solution, crafted for the Japanese FAMICOM, was called a Beam-Gun. Instead of shooting lasers, it worked on the photo-diode method. Instead of working on ANY light, however, pulling the trigger on the Beam-Gun did two things simultaneously: it briefly turned on the photo-diode, and it flashed the screen to black, except for the targets, which it outlined in white. All of this happened very, very quickly\u2014CRT-TVs, the main screens of the 1980s, had a \u201crefresh rate\u201d of 60-85 Hertz\u2026meaning the images on the screen refreshed 60-85 times a second. The screen flashed to black for 2 or 3 frames, so incredibly quickly. The end result, especially on smaller TVs, was that the flash to black was almost invisible to the naked eye. (this is also why Zapper won’t work on modern TVs. A halfway decent TV now runs on 120Hz, so the flicker rates don’t line up…the NES literally can’t keep up with modern tech.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This new method had the advantage of being totally harmless to the shooters, and was pretty much spoof-proof as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original Beam-Gun looked nothing like the Zapper we in the United States were sold, however. Clearly targeting at an adult audience and designed for the games Wild Gunman <\/em>and Hogan\u2019s Alley,<\/em> the gun was far more realistic looking. It came with a leather holster and looked like a Wild-West six-shooter; the idea was to make it more realistic for the action shooting games that were originally released with the system. Additionally, after a few years, the Zapper when from the all-over grey to being covered in blaze orange, to ensure that the gun would not be confused for a real weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Looks like a 6-shooter, comes with a Holster. Can’t imagine why this wouldn’t sell in the US<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nintendo smartly decided a more kid-friendly gun was appropriate for the US release. The Zapper, as the American gun was called, had a futuristic look to it, and was colored grey instead of the gun-metal that the Beam-Gun was. As the Zapper was eventually sold along with the game Duck Hunt<\/em>, the Zapper moved away from realism into the \u201ctoy\u201d category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Zapper started with the two-tone grey, then moved to grey\/orange to ensure the “toy” look as the movement to make toy guns look less like real ones gained stream.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The games, however, were the same for both the FAMICOM and the NES. All three light-gun games were sold on initial release day; Hogan\u2019s Alley<\/em> and Wild Gunman<\/em> were always sold independently, while Duck Hunt<\/em> would eventually be paired with Super Mario Bros on the same cartridge and sold in a set with the NES, two controllers, and the Zapper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hogan\u2019s Alley<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u201creal\u201d Hogan\u2019s Alley was at Camp Perry, Ohio. Apparently, at some point in the 1920s\/1930s, the US Government realized that police departments were carrying weapons. And the end result of carrying these weapons was a tendency to use them. Most departments didn\u2019t have ANY training at the time. There was no use of force training. No range to practice and ensure that policemen could actually hit what they were aiming at. This lack of training apparently lead to situations where police were hitting things (citizens) that they hadn\u2019t been aiming at. In a strange move, the government and the NRA (I know!) decided that some sort of training should be created. The end result was the Special Police School, which provided the sort of training that should have been around in the first place. And the shining diamond in the middle of the SPS was Hogan\u2019s Alley, a firing range where police could be trained on engaging targets. Cardboard cutouts started out thin-side to the police, then rotated 90 degrees, forcing the policemen on the range to decide whether to shoot a tommy-gun toting gangster or a mother holding a child. It was the first training in the country to teach this sort of discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initial Hogan\u2019s Alley was clearly the inspiration for this game. It follows the exact same methodology. In the first game mode, three paper targets slide onto the \u201crange\u201d with the thin side towards the shooter, then rotate to present the paper to the shooter. Players shoot the baddies, don\u2019t shoot the good guys, and get points for following these relatively simple rules. After a set number of \u201cmisses\u201d (either shooting good guys or letting the bad guys get away) the game is over. The second mode follows the same rule set, but moves through a cityscape. There\u2019s also a \u201ctrick shot\u201d mode where the shooter bounces cans across the screen, hitting the small targets to keep them in the air and guide them into openings on the left side. Players make points for getting the cans across the screen, and cans that fall off the screen count as misses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I can\u2019t play this one because I don\u2019t have a Zapper compatible with my TV or computer screen, I remember this game being challenging. The quick draw, decision based shooting was fun, a little hard, and rewarding when you got it right. The music fits (especially the jazz drums on the city mode making it seem like a 1930s gangster movie). The trick shot mode was HARD, which was good. (you could always \u201ccheat\u201d the game by getting close, and I remember doing that too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Side note (on an article filled with side notes) When the FBI opened their city-based live fire course for the Hostage Rescue Team, they named it Hogan\u2019s Alley. While some would say it was an homage to the original at Camp Perry, the fact that the new Alley was opened 3 years after the game was released is pretty telling. The course is still there, and just about every shooting course based in a city setting, including the one for the Secret Service, is called a Hogan\u2019s Alley as well).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WILD GUNMAN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Wild Gunman, we actually get our first game remade for the NES. The original Wild Gunman actually came out more than 11 years earlier, and was based on a similar system to the Laser Clay system, where it used 16 mm footage and a laser. The footage moves you through a city, and when the baddie\u2019s eyes flash, the player quick draws and shoots. If you flash leather faster, the baddie goes down. If you\u2019re too slow, game over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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