THE ガンシューティング Gun Shooting, simple 1500 series vol. 24 (Sony PlayStation)

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The Gun Shooting (simple 1500 series vol. 24) was published in 1999 by D3 Publisher. It was released exclusively in Japan for the Sony PlayStation as part of the Simple 1500 series. The simple series is composed of several budget games for 12 different consoles. The number in the name is the suggested retail price in Yen. Several games of the series have been released internationally without the simple series name.

As for the language barrier I don’t know much about the story. A young man and a young woman seem to fight against robots in Africa. The game’s introduction is a beautifully drawn cut scene. The rest of the story unfolds in text boxes. The intro, the music and much of the artwork was done by Tatsunoko Production. The developer of the game itself remains uncredited.

The used gun has unlimited ammunition and has to be reloaded every 8 shots by shooting off screen or using the B button. Sometimes a limited infinite capacity bonus can be gained by shooting crates. The game is composed of six levels: A savanna at a coast, a river, a canyon, a grave yard, a jungle and finally a cave. All levels are concluded in a boss fight. Some levels even feature a mid boss.

The progress and the high score can be saved. A level select screen is unlocked when the final boss, who appears after the apparent ending, is defeated. When dying without remaining lives the player is set back to a selection screen.

Overall the game is more on the easy side. However the final dragon is in comparison to the rest of the game rather tough and took me several trials. Personally I like the game. The one point calibration is sufficient to give the game together with the Namco G-con support a great accuracy. The scoring system was encouraging enough to make me replay the game until I reached an A rating in every level. Amongst budget light gun games it is one of the better ones. It doesn’t hold up well to many light gun Games on the Sony PlayStation but overall it is a solid experience. The art style and level design remind me strongly to Elemental Gearbolt and Panzer Dragoon. The music is hit and miss. Some parts as the guitar track in level two are amazing whereas others are far less overwhelming.

The Game seems to be picky with light guns. Basically all non Namco guns I tried had occasional problems detecting hits. I had to turn the brightness of my TV to its maximum and sit rather close to the screen in order to make guns from other vendors work reliable. The choice of the B button as reload function causes the player to hold the hand in a cumbersome and exhausting position. Also it prevents foot pedals from being used. As for the button layout the Hori Beretta M92FS Target seems to be a good choice on first glance but this gun seems to be badly affected by the before mentioned brightness problem.

As with most simple series games the cover looks rather plain.