sega menacer

[thund3r]

does any1 remember/own this lightgun thing for the Genesis/Mega drive, as i stumbled accross it when i was looking at ppl's sega collections.

and does any1 kno wot games it was used for?

 

[chrisbid]

ive got one, its quite possibly the most hideous light gun ever made. I guess it wasnt PC to produce "guns" at that point. there are only two games i know of that work with it, a six in one pack in cart, and terminator 2 the arcade game.

[glitch]

I'm not sure about cart games but there were a few CD games for the SegaCD that supported it. I belive any of the American Laser Games games do. I have Mad Dog McCree and Who Shot Johnny Rock that work with it. I do have to agree that it's not the best gun out there though. The Justifier (Konami) or GameGun work much better IMO. I think Sega just released the Menacer to compete w/ the look & style of the SNES Super Scope.

[Ze_ro]

Whoops, double post... sure would be nice if I could delete my own posts around here...

 

--Zero

[Ze_ro]

Too bad Sega never made a North American release of their Dreamcast gun Oh well, thank god for third parties.

 

Here's some information I stole from a FAQ I found on GameFAQs:

 

Menacer Sega's own light gun the biggest light gun ever created for a home system. The Menacer was made up of three interchangeable sections, the main section could be used as a pistol and to this a stock could be added for extra support  

and the third section was with twin sights that clipped on to the top. The Menacer was powered by 6 AAA batteries and was not connected by a wire to the Megadrive but by an Infra-red beam that relayed signals to a receiver box that sat on top of the television. The Menacer was advertised as the most accurate light gun ever. The Menacer retailed for £60.00 and came packaged with a 6 game cartridge that was mostly target shooting games. The best game was based on the Megadrive game Toejam & Earl which the player fired tomatoes at  

enemies from the Toejam & Earl game. Only three other games were Menacer compatible T2 the arcade game, Bodycount and Corpse Killer on Mega CD (there is also a 32x CD version of Corpse Killer)

 

It's worth pointing out that Konami has it's own light gun called the "Justifier" which was meant primarily for Lethal Enforcers (and is based on the blue/pink revolver look that the arcade game used). Here's what the same FAQ has to say about it:

 

Justifier this was Konami's own gun for use on their titles. This was a more standard looking light gun shaped like a revolver. For two player games the second gun plugged into the bottom of the player one gun. The player one gun was pale blue player two's was pink. Compatible games were Lethal Enforcers 1 and 2 (also the Mega CD versions) Snatcher and Corpse Killer on Mega CD (there is also a 32x version of Corpse Killer).

The Justifier was not compatible with Menacer software.

 

--Zero

[JB]

Too bad Sega never made a North American release of their Dreamcast gun Oh well, thank god for third parties.

Yes. Too bad the only 3rd party light gun I found sucks.

[glitch]

Yes. Too bad the only 3rd party light gun I found sucks.

I have the MadCatz Dream Blaster which I've been very happy with. I also have the Pelican Stinger which I thought was broken for the longest time until I read that a lot of people have to turn up the brightness & contrast on their TVs to get it to work. Once I did that and turned off the auto video filter on my TV it works perfectly. The picture has to be pretty bright though.

 

Back to the Genisis the Justifer only works w/ Konami games (which only work w/ the Justifer). I didn't know about Corpse Killer. Is that a Konami game? The GameGun is almost identical to the one for the 3DO and works pretty well. It works similar to the NES Zapper. You pull the trigger and the screen flashes a different color under the targets which the gun registers. The accuracy seems to be a little shaper than the Zapper. The number of games that support the GameGun is also very small. The Menacer works exactly the same as the SNES super scope. The IR reciever goes on top of the TV and it registers the angle of the gun to the reciever to determine where the shot was fired.

 

I have to disagree w/ GameFAQs on a couple of issues. The accuracy is not as good as the super scope in the tests I have performed. Periodically it will miss the targets even though the are perfectly centered in the gun site. Additionally sometimes shooting anywhere near the targets seems to hit. This may be due to poor software coding instead of the guns actual ablities, I'm not sure. I only have 2 games that work with it and they are both made by the same company (American Laser) and are basically the same games w/ different videos (neither game GameFAQs lists). By looking at the back of the manual for Mad Dog McCree I would have to assume the following games also work w/ it: Space Pirates (maybe not since this is an older game), Mad Dog II: The Last Gold, and Crime Patrol.

 

The SNES Super Scope is also about 2 inches longer than the Menacer so it cannot be the largest gun for a home system (although the Menacer is taller & wider w/ the scopes added on) I think GameFAQs just copied Sega's sales literature to generate their data on this one.

[JB]

Yes. Too bad the only 3rd party light gun I found sucks.

I have the MadCatz Dream Blaster which I've been very happy with. I also have the Pelican Stinger which I thought was broken for the longest time until I read that a lot of people have to turn up the brightness & contrast on their TVs to get it to work. Once I did that and turned off the auto video filter on my TV it works perfectly. The picture has to be pretty bright though.

I have the MadCatz one.

 

The sights aim about 2 inches higher than the barrel, and recalibrating it enough to get them pointed right leaves, well, a 2 inche stripe I can't hit.

 

And I can't have a VMU or jump pack in it because it makes it back heavy.

 

 

Back to the Genisis the Justifer only works w/ Konami games (which only work w/ the Justifer).  I didn't know about Corpse Killer.  Is that a Konami game?  

The 32x version is branded as by "Digital Pictures"

 

 

The Menacer works exactly the same as the SNES super scope.  The IR reciever goes on top of the TV and it registers the angle of the gun to the reciever to determine where the shot was fired.  

HAH!

That's not how they work. The IR sensor can be anywhere. Including behind you if you've got a mirror.

 

They actually watch untill they see the electron beam go by(they're more sensitive than humans, so they see the brightness surge stuff), then snag an interrupt line, so the CPU knows exactly where the shot was landed because it knows how long it's been since the last VBlank.

 

Accuracy would probably be hurt by a TV with scanline velocity modulation(a lame feature to make bright areas brighter and dark areas darker by speeding the electron beam up in dark areas and slowing it down in bright ones. mucks detail up and onn my TV actually visibly distorts the image)

 

 

As an interesting sidenote, they shouldn't work on new display technologies such as LCD, plasma, and DLP, because there IS NO electron beam scanning the screen(or any scan at all, for that matter).