Shooting Gallery

[Sinistral]

Since anagrama is off partying this weekend you guys are stuck with me introducing this I'm afraid. Sorry I am unable to unsticky the old topic and put this up due to me not having admin rights at the moment. This week is the turn of Tonto, let's hope its another good one. Take it away mate!

[Tonto]

Ahoy-hoy!

The temptations for my game of the week choice were many and varied. Was I to go with one of my many favourites (krusty's fun house)? Something which I knew everyone would like (Alex Kidd in Miracle world)? Something which would piss onyx off (Masters of Combat)? Something stupidly rare which no one will have (Smurfs 3 - Les Schtroumpfs visite le Reichstag)?


But I decided upon a game which I felt probably doesn't get played much, one of those ones which would languish at the bottom of the pile, crying in it's own dust. It's not an amazing game, but it's a good, solid, honest game and I'll place money on the fact that no one on here has played it in the last three months.


So kneel and bow low in supplication before your new king of games.............................



















Shooting Gallery








Obviously it utilises the fabled Light Phaser (thanks montag) and to be fair for a game made in 1987 it's a pretty decent little shooter. I guess there are more fancy and better known shooting titles out there but this one does it for me because it reminds me of one of my favourite arcade games of all time, Point Blank. And it does a pretty handy job of emulating that arcade shooter type game too. The graphics are bright and bold, the level of difficulty pretty decent and coupled with some nice touches like the background getting blown away to reveal brick or metal etc when you miss your targets it makes for a pretty pleasing piece of fun. Yeah, I like this game.

The big problems are that it doesn't have a two player mode (which would have been ace) and you only get one life. If you could have built up lives or got one more chance, this would certainly have improved it for me, but what the hell it's 1987 and the cut and thrust yuppie era has taken a hold: "No two player! No second chances! You blow it and you're out! And have that report on my desk by Tuesday or you'll never work in the city again!"



Anyways, I guess the high scores issue might come up so it's time to "fess up" regarding my own shortcomings. I played this for a good hour or two yesterday and today and my high score was 30600 and I couldn't get past level 11.

Also on level 6 I managed to hit 27 out of 28 which I thought was quite impressive. However when I looked at the scores which had been scribbled on the front of the manual by it's previous owner "Luke" I was humbled. Unless the little blighter lied to decieve me his highest was 74700 which I reckon must take you to about level 16. I'd be interested to hear of other people's scores in persuit of further humility and gaming shame.

Hope you enjoy.

[Sinistral]

Good choice, glad to see another unexpected one, I won't have much chance to play this this week as doing exams, but if my exam goes badly on tuesday I'm sure to want to shoot something.

I remember this game quite well, mainly because of its simplicity. Oh well, a good blast never hurt anyone...

[JellyCrystals]

Tonto, I have played this in the last 3 months actually!!

This is an excellent pocket-rocket of a game. As soon as I settle into the depths of my official "phaser bean bag" (the couch doesnt move as easily to get closer to the TV) I know I can give this little gem a go. This game is great... I cant get past level 6, the 2nd balls/pipes stage but I can still play it for a good while. I think my best thus far is about 13000.

I have 7 phaser games and this one is probably number 2 (narrowly beaten by Space Gun). I like the simple bright colours, and how that for some reason I dont get peeved playing the same 6 levels until I improve.

2 cheerful thumbs up!

[Tonto]

I stand corrected then Jelly. Glad to hear someone plays the game fairly regularly.

I know what you mean about not getting bored with the same levels, there's certainly plenty of replay value, even for someone of my short attention span.

[kidd_J]

this is a fairly decent light phaser game i have completed it with the score of 295500, its still far off that maximum score thing that it tells you of though.

[Stan]

Excellent game, and in my opinion one of the best "gun" type games for any system, EVER. This game exemplifies exactly what was needed for a light gun game. It's very basic, you simply shoot at targets, nothing else to say. BUT, said targets have a great deal of variety. The scenes change and get pretty damn hard as the game progresses, giving plenty of replay in my opinion. I've made it just past the first spaceship level, but no further, so I will come back to this to try it out. It's a great game, right up there with the likes of Barker Bill's Trick Shooting for the NES and beyond Duck Hunt.

[Tonto]

Hooray! A positive response. It's been so dead around here I thought I might have killed off the whole forum with my GOTW choice.

[Sinistral]

It has indeed been very quiet around here recently. I suspect it is just the summer coming in, People are busy finishing work for college/uni and people are trying to get away for the summer.

[anagrama]

Heh, I was worried that was my fault - go away for a few days and the place dies Haven't had a chance for a decent crack at Shooting Gallery yet this week, and I can;t remember a great deal about it form the last time I played. Will report back shortly...

[JannettyTheRocker]

Great game choice, Shooting Gallery is always overlooked. Only better light phaser game is Rescue Mission........

[anagrama]

Just been putting in a decent stint, and I can only concur with the general good comments - there's opnly so much you can do with a lightgun shooter, and this does it nicely and is a classic example of the 'just one more go' pull. It's just as well the early levels are pretty fun - the mean difficulty means you're constantly replaying them since most new levels after a certain point will take at least a couple of goes to familiarise yourself.
First day score of 23,400 at Level 10. Will try again tomorrow

[anagrama]

Another session tonight yeilded a slight improvement - made it to the bouncing TV screens of level 13, scoring 31800 in the process. Must do better!

[anagrama]

Level 15, 46300. I rock.

[Tonto]

Yeah, I gave it a decent go again and managed level 14 and 45600. This game has superb replay value, I just don't seem to tire of shooting unusually coloured ducks, Balls which roll through pipes, ballons, airships, spaceships, televisions et al.