Act Labs GunZ

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The GunZ was made in early 1997 by Act Labs for the Sony PlayStation. It resembles the Konami Hyper Blaster, but excels it in every regard. Its visual similarities to the Hyper Blaster are far more subtle than those of the Naki Lunar gun. The GunZ design feels being inspired by the Konami gun but I would say it stands on its own. Early units were sold in grey, whereas later ones are blue. The 1998 released T variant, which I will show in another video, was red. Tech-Ni-Comm later blatantly stole the design of the then upcoming Act Labs PC light gun system from their patent document and used it in the so called PC Automag. To make matters worse Famiclone guns appeared on the marked which also copied the design from Act Labs.

The gun feels nice and is of a high built quality. The start and action button are placed on a similar location as it was at the Hyper Blaster. A new addition is a slider, which allows the player to set an auto reload feature to off, 5, or 10 shot intervals. The reloading happens fast and doesn't disturb the game play much. Similarly as the Hyper Blaster the GunZ has a huge front sight, which makes the feeling at aiming quite distinctive for these guns. The lovely trigger is very tactile and has a nice, clicky sound to it. Although the trigger of the Hyper Blaster isn't terrible, the improvement is outrageously noticeable.

The GunZ is very accurate and precise for a non Guncon compatible light gun and it excels the Hyper Blaster by far in those regards. Comparing it to guns in Guncon mode wouldn't be fair, as these benefit from a composite sync input they use as a reference. Furthermore the GunZ was released prior to the G-con 45. Personally I like the GunZ a lot. It is my go to light gun for all non-Guncon PlayStation light gun games. Act Labs is amongst my favorite light gun producers because of their high quality products and their significant influence on light gun gaming as a whole.

I like the box design even though the gun on the front isn't sharp. The claim that this gun will be usable for all your favorite PlayStation light gun games was made before Namco ported its lovely games to the console. Act Labs were still calling themselves Act Laboratory at that time.