Light gun games on Switch

[DavidD]

Given how the joycon's camera works, couldn't they make a shell holding a joycon with the camera facing outwards, and a small reflective sticker for positioning?  Wouldn't you be able to mimic the Wii's sensor bar?

[roots.genoa]

45 minutes ago, DavidD said:

Given how the joycon's camera works, couldn't they make a shell holding a joycon with the camera facing outwards, and a small reflective sticker for positioning?  Wouldn't you be able to mimic the Wii's sensor bar?

Yes, you could, that's (often) how it's used with Nintendo Labo. I probably have reflective sticker leftovers now that I think about it.

[+Hydro Thunder]

 

He's a big fan.  I'm concerned about the controls / gyro thing...but not so concerned that I'm not about to drop $25 on this puppy, gooood price.  They'd have probably had me at $35 or more much like SoR4.

 

[+Hydro Thunder]

Follow up... I bought it, it's on sale today for $20, played the first stage using a Pro Controller with Gyro.  Not bad, pretty fun actually, but definitely doesn't feel like using a light gun (no real surprrise).  The look is very nice, lots of options too, and it does capture the feel of the original somehow, and not too shabby.

I would say for the Light Gun / Gyro question... It feels better than say, using a Saturn D-pad for moving the cursor, and slightly better (maybe?) than using an analog stick for the cursor, but definitely still a far way away from a light gun.  So my super early initial review... good graphics upgrade, faithful in every way they can be while still moving forward, worth $20 if you're a big fan of the game.  Maybe not so if you really really need it to be a light gun game.  The Wii Zapper, while not perfect by any means, was a better emulator of light gun play than this is.

[Daj]

3 hours ago, Hydro Thunder said:

Follow up... I bought it, it's on sale today for $20, played the first stage using a Pro Controller with Gyro.  Not bad, pretty fun actually, but definitely doesn't feel like using a light gun (no real surprrise).  The look is very nice, lots of options too, and it does capture the feel of the original somehow, and not too shabby.

I would say for the Light Gun / Gyro question... It feels better than say, using a Saturn D-pad for moving the cursor, and slightly better (maybe?) than using an analog stick for the cursor, but definitely still a far way away from a light gun.  So my super early initial review... good graphics upgrade, faithful in every way they can be while still moving forward, worth $20 if you're a big fan of the game.  Maybe not so if you really really need it to be a light gun game.  The Wii Zapper, while not perfect by any means, was a better emulator of light gun play than this is.

It's only the controls giving me pause... I don't ask for much, I just want it to be semiplayable with half a joycon.

[Rick Dangerous]

I fully believe at this point that the Switch can't do a real light gun game, it's a hardware limitation.

[DavidD]

5 hours ago, Rick Dangerous said:

I fully believe at this point that the Switch can't do a real light gun game, it's a hardware limitation.

With the default hardware setup, it can't -- it's relying entirely on gryo.  It seems like there COULD be a relatively inexpensive workaround for this (using a reverse Joycon + light/reflector), but I doubt anyone is ever going to set that up.

 

The best case at this point is a new "Zapper" shell, allowing a Joycon to be used as a camera for auto-correcting the gyro, but that seems incredibly unlikely.

[roots.genoa]

The most probable way it could happen would be it Nintendo themselves released a light gun game with a peripheral (using a reverse right Joy-con and a light/reflector as said above), then third parties could use it and even add it retroactively with patches. One could argue it would alienate nomad/Switch lite gamers, since it fits docked mode a lot more, but you could say the same about Ring Fit though. So you never know!

[Daj]

On 4/7/2022 at 2:37 PM, Daj said:

It's only the controls giving me pause... I don't ask for much, I just want it to be semiplayable with half a joycon.

Well, it's not playable with half a joycon, but I'm satisfied with the controls. It's different from a lightgun, but it's not bad at all. I might even blaspheme and say it beats squinting down a plastic gunsight for 20 minutes. You can use the analog stick and gyro in conjunction and tune the sensitivity of both. The upshot is less clunky than dragging a cursor with a stick, but not as lame as pointing with a mouse.

 

My only other Switch "lightgun" experience is Beast Busters in the SNK collection, and that one is sadly almost unplayable. 

[MrBeefy]

HotD sounds about as good as I expected. I agree with @roots.genoa that Nintendo would need to do something like Duck Hunt 2 to get the peripherals and other parties interested.

 

Now I want to play HotD Overkill on Wii.

[Rick Dangerous]

2 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

Now I want to play HotD Overkill on Wii.

The Wii was possibly the best light gun system of all time.

[homerj]

19 hours ago, Rick Dangerous said:

The Wii was possibly the best light gun system of all time.

I agree.  Overkill could definitely run better but it’s still great & i never get tired of it.  Plus there are quite a few under the radar light gun games that are worth playing.  

[+Hydro Thunder]

As a huge fan of light guns, it's such a toughie these days.  The Wii was way up there, no doubt.

The only CRT I currently have is a 13", but that said the Saturn Stunners with Virtua Cop 1 & 2, and HOTD, pretty hard to beat for accuracy and action.

The Wii had a GREAT selection.  Personal favorites were Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Ghost Squad, Gunblade NY / LA Machine Guns, HOTD 2, HOTD Overkill, and even yes, I loved Link's Crossbow Training (I know it gets flack but honestly don't know why...I really enjoy it). 

 

I bought the Sindens to go with my Mame / Hyperspin setup, but seriously it has been nearly nothing but trouble.  Going to put some more time into figuring it out this weekend if I can.  But once I finally had things running well, turns out there's some issue with the Model 2 emulator and firing off screen resets the whole thing sometimes.  Grrr!  I wish I could just magically plug in the Sindens to my Switch and play HOTD Remake with them

[Parker77]

Struggling to get used to HotD. Feels over sensitive even on lowest settings. 

[homerj]

There’s so much i like about the game but i don’t know how much I’ll actually play it.  The Joycon is just too small for extended play sessions.  I played it for a while the other night & by the end my wrist was killing me.  The gyro drift was the worst it’s been yet too.  

[Daj]

On 4/12/2022 at 2:34 PM, Daj said:

Well, it's not playable with half a joycon,

Oops, I lied: you have to go into options and change it to joycon mode. You really feel the Unity-ness of this game in the UI.

 

On 4/14/2022 at 10:58 AM, homerj said:

I agree.  Overkill could definitely run better but it’s still great & i never get tired of it.  Plus there are quite a few under the radar light gun games that are worth playing.  

Overkill was great, Director's Cut was great, Typing of the Dead Overkill was great. I really don't need it ported to anything without proper motion controls, but maybe it's worth hooking the ol' PS3 back up.

 

On 4/19/2022 at 10:39 AM, homerj said:

There’s so much i like about the game but i don’t know how much I’ll actually play it.  The Joycon is just too small for extended play sessions.  I played it for a while the other night & by the end my wrist was killing me.  The gyro drift was the worst it’s been yet too.  

Using the stick and gyro together, I sometimes end up pushing the cursor way off to the corner, and re-centering it is tricky. Sometimes it twitches and jumps around on me... sometimes not. I've been playing with a Switch Pro controller, and the gyro feels a little better maybe...? Or is that just my imagination? There might be some voodoo to where I sit and how I hold the controller to get it right.

 

'L' toggles the gryo on and off, but there's no visual feedback, so if you clumsily bump the button it seems like the game's gone berserk for no reason.