Review: Somatosensory Light Gun & Console
(The console may look different depending where you get it from.)
This is a strange bit of hardware to review, since it’s often sold under many names, even though the gun usually looks the same. It’s sold on Amazon, Aliexpress, eBay, and in other places as “TV Game Console with AR Gun Game” or something along those lines, but the “brand name” and title will change.
This is essentially a gyro gun being sold with a little Android/ARM console that has a bunch of games programmed into it, with 22 light gun games (sometimes less, depending which product you look at, be sure to check closely if you’re interested,) all made by the same developer, and sharing a lot of the same assets. I would more accurately call these mini-games rather than games, but we’ll talk more about the games later.
(The handle and trigger are surprisingly comfortable for being so cheap.)
As for the hardware, the gun is actually surprisingly comfortable to hold and shoot, with some ergonomic finger slots on the grip, plus it’s lightweight and surprisingly accurate for a gyro-based gun. As with any gyro gun, you’ll still have to be resetting the cursor from time to time (done by clicking the analog stick on the side of the gun,) but it’s far more accurate than many of the gyro guns I’ve used. There’s also a rumble motor for a simulated recoil function that rumbles decently hard with each shot, which is a nice touch, but you’ll probably forget it’s there after using for a few minutes.
The one negative part of the gun would be the pump slide on the bottom, which you have to put a lot of force onto and sometimes still doesn’t activate when it’s supposed to, but usually works maybe 9 times out of 10. The trigger has a very clicky button feeling that doesn’t require a lot of force, and it’s a very short trigger pull, which is nice. The console also usually comes with some very bad Wiimote ripoff controllers used to play a host of other non-light gun games packed in with the console, none of which are very noteworthy, and some versions of it even come with a DDR-style dance pad.
(This photoshopped child appears on most of the listings for this console on any site. Playing DDR and using a light gun at the same time? Sign me up.)
There’s also another feature here where you can play NES ROMs on this machine, but sadly, the emulator that’s included is not actually compatible with the gun to play the NES light gun titles. Though there might be a way to just throw on RetroArch or a different Android-based emulator that does support the gun, but I haven’t gone down that rabbit hole yet.
Oddly, this console seems to be getting harder to find nowadays, as some of the listings are disappearing as time goes on, but just look closely at the listing and pictures to see if it’s the same one (the gun and the game screenshots are the keys.) The console itself and the controllers will usually look different.
Now for the games, I’ll just give a quick description of each one since there’s not much to any of them. They’re all basic 2D games and each game has Normal and Hard modes, containing 10 stages of mostly the same patterns to shoot with increasing speed and relative difficulty with each stage. Most games run between 30-60 minutes to complete all the stages.
Raga of Wars: One of the closest games in this collection to actually being a real light gun game, where it scrolls across an entire stage, there’s hostages, bosses, three unique stages, and you can even change your weapon with the analog stick.
Perfect Counterattack: Basically the same as Raga of Wars, but with different visuals. Instead of the alien/sci-fi aesthetic, it’s mostly down on an Earth-looking planet.
Cave Ghost: Basically like playing Whack-a-Mole with a light gun. Pretty fun overall, just far too easy.
Sharpshooter: Essentially moving targets that move in random directions on the screen, similar to Police Trainer or some of the Point Blank mini-games. One of the more decent entries here that’s also one of the shortest overall.
Lightning Gunner: A very boring game where all you do is shoot projectiles that an alien throws at you. One of the worst games here.
Hostage Crisis: A game where there’s UFOs abducting people who are running around in the streets and you have to shoot them before the people are taken. Gets old really quickly, even though the premise is OK.
Shooting Duck: A very repetitive Duck Hunt style game, but with about 30-50 ducks per stage.
Sniper Airborne: One of the worst games here, with little aliens parachuting down to the ground, and you have to shoot them about seven times before they hit the ground. Very slow and boring.
Street Gunman: A game where there’s a scrolling street and aliens will pop out of windows and from behind boxes or doors with very little variation.
Frisbee Arena: Essentially just the clay shooting mode from Duck Hunt, but they also throw in grenades from time to time, which you’re not supposed to shoot. Pretty fun all things considered.
Mix Match: A game where you’re shown a grid that has matching pairs of animals and then they’re obscured and you have to shoot the pairs together. Just your basic memory matching game that you’ve seen thousands of times.
Toy Shooter: A game where two rows of toys are scrolling by on conveyor belts and you need to shoot different toys in a certain sequence to complete the level. This is one of the more unique games here, it makes you actually think about what you’re doing before you shoot.
Intercept Mines: A classic “shoot the depth charges before they hit the ships at the top of the water” game, like hundreds you’ve seen before. Gets boring quickly.
Digital Memory: A simple and boring memory game where you have to remember a sequence of numbers on a grid and repeat it afterward. Like a light gun version of Simon, or something along those lines.
Dream of Gems: Basically like playing Puyo Puyo or Columns, but you use a gun to change the color of the falling gems. Very slow and boring.
Split Bomb: A game where there’s bombs bouncing around and you have to break them apart into smaller bombs then shoot them again to make them disappear before they hit a person walking at the bottom of the screen. Basically like playing the old arcade game Buster Bros. with a light gun.
Clear Road-Block: As the name says, it’s a game where you follow a girl running down a road and have to clear roadblocks and stop all kinds of hazards from hitting her. Along the lines of games like Crossbow (ARC,) Baby Boomer (NES,) or Rescue Shot (PS1). Very repetitive and stages feel too long.
Annoying Bird: A game where birds swoop across the screen and try to steal fruit from a tree, and there’s a farmer that runs along the bottom to retrieve the fruit while the birds try to take it away. There’s been games like this around since the 1980s.
Sea of Fire: A fairly unique game where you shoot boats and ships with a cannon. The cannon has a very slow shot speed and a strange arc to the shots, but it is one of the more fun games included here.
Fruit Shooter: Basically just Fruit Ninja with a light gun.
Deer Hunting: A nearly perfect 2D copy of a Big Buck Hunter game. Deer are actually pretty hard to hit, difficulty is a bit higher than most of the other games here and the screen actually scrolls with your cursor.
Dump Shooter: A game where you shoot falling cans and junk, similar to the Trick Shooting mini-game from Hogan’s Alley on NES (and many other similar games.) Very boring.
As a conclusion, the games are mostly really simple and repetitive, even if they’re decently fun and work well enough, probably due to being developed with this exact gun hardware in mind, but it feels like this would only be enjoyable for hardcore light gun enthusiasts who want to play everything that exists in the space or by very young children (who would also probably get bored of it quickly to go back to a tablet or smartphone..)
And the last real conclusion is that this is an even harder sell when you consider the price, since it usually retails from somewhere between $65 and $100 depending on where you get it and which accessories it has, and for what you get here, that’s a tough pill to swallow.