Last night I was playing my copy of House of the Dead 2 and 3 for the Wii, when an old thought started to creep back into my head. A very long time ago I started to think up my dream idea for a light gun shooter, unfortunately the arcade scene in the US has gone up in smoke since then. Playing a shooter on the Wii felt almost second nature, with exception of holding the Wii-Mote (a problem I will fix once my perfect shot gets here).
I’ve been playing light guns since Duck Hunt on the NES, and one of my favorites were the Super Scope mech fighting series Metal Combat. That game was a somewhat niche experience, and was pretty complex with learning boss maneuvers and such. But back to my original thought, an ultimate light gun shooter for the Wii, to even start creating one I have to think about what makes light gun games fun.
The first rule is , no more quarters (see how I cleverly worked that in ?). Arcade gaming and console gaming always had 1 major difference, time limits. Every arcade game was designed to be beatable in about 15-20 maybe less depending on the genre. Reason being to have expert players finish the game fast and move on, letting more people play and insert quarters. With home consoles, you never have to worry about that again which makes designing a shooter for a console first pretty interesting. My first decision is to make the game long, from House of the Dead 2 (from now HoTD2) the game is about 6 chapters long. For my shooter I want it to be bigger, and take at least an hour to play thru. The first new idea would have to be allowing saving during the game as holding a light gun for an hour can start to hurt your hand.
The next rule is mixing it up, having multiple paths and bosses is a great way to keep the game fresh. HotD 2 did this by changing the path players take depending on if they save certain civilians, but there were not alot of these paths in the game. For my shooter I want to see the ability to choose different missions, that will change the story and what enemies you will fight. Like I said in the above paragraph this game should only take about an hour to finish but I want players to keep coming back, and perhaps play the game overall for 20+. Different boss fights is a must, not just a harder/easier version but completely new bosses. This wasn’t possible or wanted for arcade cabinets, but for home consoles it’s doable.
Now comes a tough one, creating challenge for the expert players while easing off for new comers. One idea that has been buzzing around in my head is to randomize enemy placements some what. So in one playthru an enemy may jump out a window on the left side of the screen, the next time he could bust thru the door in the center of the room. I think having multiple paths is a great way to alter difficulty, harder paths means fighting stronger enemies and bosses. I wonder if the time has come to get rid of the old life token system of arcade machines and maybe switch to a health bar? Perhaps color coded attacks can be used, or a general system like normal size enemies do small damage, bigger enemies do more damage. Health and credit limits can also be adjusted to control difficulty .
The trick for boss fights is to make them a challenge, yet not so hard that you can get thru it without being hit. In HoTD3 parts of the bosses that would attack would have a smaller life bar that if you empty it, the boss will not attack. One of my favorite fights in Metal Combat was a boss that had an one hit kill attack, the challenge was you only had one shot to hit it in its weak point before it open fires. That was one tense moment there, and a higher level of design in a light gun shooter. Perhaps adding in the ability to weaken boss attacks could work, such as shooting parts of the boss in attempt to destroy them.
Next is the subject of single vs multi player. A single player shooter offers alot more in complexity , looking at Metal Combat or even Yoshi’s Safari they are a step above shooters like HoTD since the designers only worried about one person shooting. But co-op multi player is a huge draw for these types of games. One of my favorite arcade games was Tango and Cash, where one player would be the driver and the other the shooter. Adding complexity to multi player shooters is a huge leap from the arcade, such as being able to split up and explore different buildings to improve score or unlock new things. Also I believe it’s time to add online multi player to light gun shooters, that would be an amazing draw for fans of the genre.
Another idea I had was allowing the player the use of different guns. By changing the health system of enemies and bosses, this can be greater accomplish. Such as a shotgun will do more damage, but take a few seconds more to reload or machine guns that do less damage per bullet but can shoot alot faster. After watching the Castle of Cagliostro I would love to see an AT rifle used in a shooter, can kill normal enemies in one shot but takes a long time to reload.
I really hope a possible revival of the genre is now possible thanks to the Wii. The technology is in place, now we just need to see some games.
Josh ( Yes I’m a huge Miyazaki fan).
