016 · WILD GUNMAN
In this episode of NEStalgia break out your holster, BUT not too soon. You'll need great reflexes for Wild Gunman! For more NEStalgia visit NEStalgiacast.com where we host every episode and offer in depth reviews!
Wild Gunman is the last of the Zapper games from the launch lineup, and the one that feels most American, with its saloon, a Monument Valley-style rock in the background and cheesy but fitting Western music. It came out in February 1984, a few months before Hogan's Alley, and that is the whole problem. We kept saying it is Hogan's Alley in a cowboy hat.
What it gets right
- The setting does a lot of work. In Hogan's Alley you are at FBI training. Here it is an actual shootout, and the saloon, the scenery and the music make it feel more exciting. We also liked the tune that plays when you get shot, with its counter melodies.
- A voice. The synthesized "Fire" is a step beyond Kung Fu's laugh, which was the other voice sample we had run into.
- Three modes. One outlaw, two outlaws, and Gang, the saloon shootout. In the two-outlaw mode they draw at slightly different times and sometimes one never fires, so you can't just listen for the first shot. Gang, with five windows and smaller targets, is the only one that really tests you, and we rarely made it to round ten.
- Fast draws. Joe hit a 0.00 reaction time, which he insists was a total accident (we preferred the theory that he could see the future). Later came 0.09 and 0.06, and drawing the Wiimote from the belt added maybe 0.1 to 0.15 seconds. We decided the game needs holsters.
Where it falls apart
- Aim doesn't matter. In the one-on-one duel you only have to hit the rectangle where the enemy walks, anywhere in it, at the right time. It is reflex alone, and the reflexes are not hard. The computer tells you its reaction time in advance, from 1.2 seconds down to 0.4, and we averaged around 0.32.
- It never ramps up. After about ten rounds we expected it to get harder, and it didn't.
- Slow and repetitive. The first round of waiting for a guy to walk on builds anticipation. By the 30th it is boring. There are only about five outlaws, and the only reactions are a hat falling off or pants dropping, no matter where you hit. It is tempting to think you shot his hat off by aiming near his head, but it is simply the only animation there is.
- No innocents. Hogan's Alley made you avoid bystanders, and we kept wishing for a hostage here, since that is a decision this game never asks for.
Beyond the game
Wild Gunman turns up in the diner scene in Back to the Future Part II, which we thought was a big deal for an NES game, though it was the earlier system's version. It was also released in Japan before Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley, and we heard it did better there, possibly because of the over-the-top American feel.
The bottom line
Skip it. Joe's reason was Duck Hunt, which is on our list because your aim counts and so the Zapper matters. This game could almost be played with the A button. Hogan's Alley didn't make the list either, so we went 0 for 4 again. If you want a Western duel, play the one in Red Dead Redemption, which is a more complete game. Our one joke for improving it was to hand the shooting to R.O.B.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Take on the fastest guns in the West in Wild Gunmen.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike Esposito. I'm Joe Castu. I'm Sean. And I'm Sam. I take my last name cue from you when you go past you. Oh, that's very nice. Yeah.
Just so everyone knows. No, that was an important interruption. Right. Good. Well, good. All right. Okay. So today we're talking about Wild Gunmen, our last NES Zapper game for the launch games. There will be other NES Zapper games, but this one's kind of, I feel like, the most American of the three. Not only because it takes place in the Wild West, but it just feels like very much in the spirit, you know, with the saloon and just the, I don't know. You know, like it has, it has a lot of like cinema, like Western cinema aspects to it and stuff like that. Yeah. It's a spaghetti Western. I drew it. Yeah. Oh yeah. You're in the, you're in the West. You can see the, I forget what the rock is called, but the famous rock.
The, oh yeah, you're right. You do see that in the background. Yeah. You even hear some of that like American music of like, you know, that's very American. That is right. Yeah. That is. That's like, it's like close to the national anthem.
It's like right up there. I'm surprised there were no bald eagles in this game. There should have been, right? You might be tempted to shoot them and that'd be, that'd be bad. So that's, that's my first impression. I'm really shocked that like right off the bat that there were no bald eagles. No, no. My, my first impression was just that this game was seen to be targeted more towards Americans, but I know that the Japanese did like the wild west and Western movies in general, just like popular around the world. I mean, the spaghetti Westerns themselves are Italian made. Yeah. I believe that like this game actually did better in Japan though.
Yeah. Because of it's like over the top American feel. Uh, that's why the original zapper looked like a wild, like a, like a Luger or whatever. Everybody wants to be a cowboy. Yeah. We all do.
Well, I mean like when you're a kid, who doesn't want to just wrangle up some cows, you know, call it a day, maybe have a duel at night. Have a duel. I thought it was during a day. It's at high noon. Yeah. Which is, which is a good movie. Specifically at night. High noon's a good movie. I like that movie. Both versions.
So what is Wild Gunman? Wild Gunman is a zapper game. Uh, essentially there's three different modes. One is a one on one duel where, uh, you can't draw before your opponent does. Seems a little cheap that I can't call out draw as well. Yeah. Exactly. I think I have to wait for him to draw. Uh, then there's another mode where there's two guys drawing against you and I've just never heard of that in the cowboy ethics. Never heard of it. You still have to wait. Yeah. You still have to wait for both of them.
I assumed it was like a third party who was like overseeing the whole thing who was yelling out draw. Okay. Yeah. I think that you're onto something. Yeah. And then lastly, there's the, uh, you know, the more epic style of like, uh, you've learned the duels. Now it's time to do a shootout, uh, in a saloon with a whole gang of guys. Uh, and who knows when they'll appear. This is more of like the stereotypical, uh, zapper kind of game that we would see even on like other consoles, other, uh, computer games that even have this, uh, you know, the cowboy setting, uh, was very popular for those kinds of zapper games. And there was one, uh, like mad dog that I played on windows 95.
That was really cool. Cause it had, um, real life animate, like, you know, it was filmed and then you would like react to that. So that was cool. Great act. But I always, the acting is, uh, well, mad dog himself, pretty scary, but I'm mad dog Mattis, general mad dog Mattis, uh, in the game, in person, in the flesh. Uh, but no, that's, that's wild gunman in a nutshell. And, uh, the game is, is as simple as I described it. So let's just kind of real fast. First impressions.
My, my first impression was that it, that it was pretty simple, but also that it did a pretty good job of getting your adrenaline pumping a little bit. It, you know, it made you want to, it made you want to beat the, uh, the speed of the next guy, but you know, it's all about timing. So it kind of got your heart racing a little bit. Okay. Sean. Uh, my first impression of this game is that it's just a re skin of Hogan's alley.
Ooh. Um, I mean, I don't know the exact timeline of, of when these games came out in Japan. Maybe Hogan's alley came out after this game in Japan, but these are the same game. There's a timing mode, which is in, in Hogan's alley is just the gun ranch. And in this game, it's the actual standoffs and the shootouts. And then there's a shooting gallery mode where they just pop up at random moments. Like, I don't see much of a difference between them except for recontextualizing why you're shooting these targets. Yeah. And just to note, I did not know this. I looked it up while you were talking. Wild Gunman came first, but only by, let's see, it came out in February of 84.
Hogan's Alley comes out in June of 84. So not really, like, probably development-wise, they were being developed at the same exact time. Sure. My first impression was like, oh, this is where the guys from Duck Hunt in Smash 4 come from. You know? Right.
And that was pretty much it. It's just kind of like, yeah, very basic. Shoot where you want the guy to be, and then he goes away, and then you wait for the next one to come out. I don't know. It was pretty simple. And one thing I want to add as part of my first impressions is that this was in Back to the Future 2, which is kind of a big deal for an NES game. Now, granted, it came out for the first system first, and that was kind of how it was featured in the Back to the Future 2 diner scene.
But I think that's just a big thing, you know, for Nintendo to be featured in such a mainstream way. Like, even their commercials were limited at the time. And this is a game, this whole launch is only really happening in New York and L.A. So for it to be featured in Back to the Future, kind of a big deal. That's a pretty good gig. Yeah, pretty good gig. I don't think Back to the Future 2 came out during the NES launch. It was much later. Yeah. But still. And they were thinking that people in 2015 would be playing this game in our case.
But it is in the retro diner, to be fair, in Back to the Future 2. That's true. Yeah, the 80s-themed diner, which is retro in the future. And also, the kids in the future didn't like it. Maybe a little negative. Well, yeah. So I don't think they would put it on their essential game. No, we should talk about that. No, I really do want to go to that place now. Yeah, right? Like an 80s team, arcade, and style. And see Jaws 3D. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, let's move on to... We talked about what the objective of the game is. Let's just move right into game A. That's the one-out law mode.
Any thoughts on this? Yes. So, actually, I want to talk about how I also saw that it was very similar to Hogan's Alley. But I did notice that the big difference was I preferred Hogan's Alley because it also gave you... You needed to make a choice. There were innocent people you had to avoid. So this was kind of... I mean, it makes sense now that you mentioned that this came out before... Or this came out before Hogan's Alley. That it felt like that mode in Hogan's Alley stripped of one of its very few elements. Yeah, one thing I really want to touch on fast here is that if there's anything this game got right, it's the setting, the atmosphere, the music.
Like, it's really cool. And yeah, it's cheesy now. But I still think it's really cool that they were able to, like... You know, from everything from the voice synthesis of the fire... Yeah. Which is really cool and way more advanced than Kung Fu's Laugh. Mm-hmm. Which was another voice synthesis thing. To have that in there, and then also to have, like, that, as you were talking, the classic Western scene with the Monument Valley and stuff like that. Like, that's really cool that they included all that stuff.
Where Game A, and pretty much most of the game, falls flat, is that you don't have to directly hit your opponent. No. You just have to get it in that vicinity. I found out that as long as you're aiming at the rectangle on the screen that is, like, the playable area where the enemy walks around, as long as you hit that, any part of it, at the right time, then you win. Right. You're not gonna miss. It's specifically about timing and not at all about aim. Yeah. At least in the one player.
Yeah. In the one enemy. No, absolutely. It's the, you can hit them on the right side or the left side as far as you want, as long as it's registering on the screen. It's more reflex. And yeah, it's more reflex, which would be great if the reflexes were all that challenging.
Unfortunately, this was something that I thought after maybe, like, 10 rounds or something, the difficulty would stack up. It doesn't, it never really goes back up to 1.2 seconds. Mm-hmm. Uh, and this is all something that, like, you know, the computer, uh, it tells you what their reaction time's gonna be before they ever even shoot. It says they're gonna be 1.2 seconds all the way down to the fastest possible, 0.4.
Yeah. The 0.4 is rare, and even 0.4, we, me and Joe, we averaged around, like, 0.32 as, like, our average shot. It was pretty rare that we got above 0.4. Right. I think that you do have to, uh, self-impose a rule that you have to, like, draw it from your belt. And we did that from your suggestion. Yeah. We actually did do that. I've said, I want to try what Sean did, and it did make it a little harder.
Yeah. But only in the grand scheme of things, added another 0.1, 0.15 seconds to it. That's a fast draw. Thank you so much. But, uh, to be fair, uh, we were playing this on the Wii U Virtual Console version. I don't own a NES cart of... Well, here's the thing, though. Was your hand off the controller, or was it still... It was on the controller. Yeah, well, there you go. I don't have a holster for my Wiimote, but I also don't have a holster for my Zapper, because I don't own a holster, period.
Well, we, okay, I think we need to make holsters. Yeah. This would be a better game with holsters. Yeah, Wiimote holsters. But, uh, no, I did love that when you said that in, um, DuckCon as, like, a way to impose your own restrictions. Yeah. And so we definitely tried that. Uh, Joe even watched me fail as I tried to shoot it behind my legs. Like, I was, like, I was looking away, and I was shooting through the legs. Unfortunately, I just was never able to connect with the TV.
Yeah. I think that's hard. I think that, uh, what this game does much better than Hogan's Alley is, like, you said the things with the setting and all of the aesthetic details, but, like, just the context of why you're doing this. Like, if you, in Hogan's Alley, it's like, okay, you're at a gun range at Hogan's Alley. Yeah, you're at the FBI training.
Mm-hmm. Um, but, like, in this one, like, it's not just, like, oh, because this is a training, we have a timer on you. No, this is an actual shootout. Right. It feels more exciting. It does feel a lot more exciting. And I don't know if this had anything to do with, like, loading times or anything like that, or just part of the atmosphere, but it gets annoying pretty fast how long it takes these guys to move on to the screen.
Oh, but it builds anticipation. Yeah, no, but I'm just saying, like, it's really cool for the first round. Yeah. It's really boring by, like, the 30th confirmed kill, which are, they're not kills.
No. They're not kills. Their hat falls off or their pants fall down. Yeah, it's always comedic, but I like to think of them as kills. Although, when you get shot, it plays the dun-dun-da-dun-dun-da-dun-da-dun-da. Yeah, it doesn't seem like these guys are playing all that fair. Yeah. Which would lead to why they're wanted. Yeah. Although, that music, though, the music that happens when you get shot is really good. Yeah. There's, like, all these different counter melodies in it. Yeah, I think the music in this game is pretty choice. It's very choice. Very choice music.
But the guys, too, there's only, like, five of them. Yeah. But they're all funny in their own little ways. But, again, I think that the inclusion of, like, this is going to sound bad, but, like, the inclusion of, like, a hostage or something, like, something that you don't want to shoot would have made this game a lot more interesting. Because if we move on to game B here, two outlaws.
The only difference is now, again, still no precision. You just have to shoot the right side of the screen. And the entirety of the right side of the screen counts for the guy on the right. And the entirety of the left side of the screen for the guy on the left. So it's a little more interesting. But to make up for that, because now there's two guys on the screen, the reaction times are also boosted. So the other thing that sort of adds a bit of complexity to it is they don't draw at the same time. If they drew at the same time, they'd just be like, wham, bam.
But you actually have to pay attention to both of them. And I guess that's one thing to make it a little bit more interesting. Yeah. And they're not so far off, though. Yeah. I mean, like, sometimes they can be. And really interestingly, I did like that sometimes one of them doesn't even shoot. Oh, at all. Yeah. And that was kind of cool, because it's like, if you're only listening for the fire, and you have a guy ready on one side, you might accidentally shoot innocent, I guess, even though they're unwanted posers. Yeah, they're unwanted posers, and they come out in the middle of a shootout with you and expecting not to shoot. Yeah, what were they thinking?
And who's calling foul? Like, are they saying, like, hey? Hey, hey, hey. Hey. We didn't shoot yet. Yep. I wasn't going to shoot. I was just, like, that's not believable. Well, I guess it's, I mean, it probably didn't matter because of the increased reaction time, but if you shoot one instead of shooting the other, that means the other one can shoot you faster. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong here. Game A, this is like every other Zapper game that we talked about, though. Game A is the warm-up. You know? Your little sister can play it, okay?
Game B is the mode where all of a sudden things are, you know, like, stepping up. But, like, in this game, things are stepping up, but not that much. No. You know? Like, it's still kind of like, all right, what else you got? And so then they give us Game C, which is the, it's called Gang.
Gang. So that makes sense because you have one Outlaw, two Outlaw, and now you got Gang. But Gang is the saloon shootout. Gotta give them credit for the saloon. And this mode, if played with the Zapper and stuff like that, is pretty challenging, I will say. So this was the mode that I thought was the most reminiscent of Hogan's Alley and also the most that made me think Hogan's Alley is better. Because Hogan's Alley had a mode almost exactly like this, but it had the innocent people you had to avoid, and you moved and changed scenery a little bit. And there was that nice music in Hogan's Alley.
But other than, I do agree with what you said, Sean, that in this game in general, it feels a little more fun because you have a better reason to be doing it. But other than that, I felt like Hogan's Alley did this mode better. I did feel like the surprises, though, in the saloon mode of who's going to, because now you have five windows to choose from, and the target is a lot smaller because even though it's still beyond the person, but you have to be in that box for those five, it is a little more interesting.
And also, you know, I wasn't making it that far, not in the sense of not making it through the first round, but just that in game A, one outlaw, I just have to stop at a certain point. I have to be like, I'm just never going to really lose at this point. It's like, I just have to be patient and wait for them to save fire. In two outlaws, you know, you lose a life here or there because the guy doesn't actually draw or something. But in game C, gang, I wasn't really making it to round 10. Yeah. At least there's some difficulty there. And I'm just saying, like, it's something. To me, it's the only, it's the only, like, yeah, it's a mode. It's actually a mode. Wild Gunman. Yeah. It's something. You can still play game C. You can play it.
You can play it, but you won't like it. Or you probably love it, but if you do, it's just nostalgia. Nostalgia. That's not me saying the title of the show. That was like actual nostalgia. Well, it feels great both ways. Oh, that's lovely. So one thing I want to talk about, since we seem to be done with talking about the gameplay of this, is Joe kind of did an incredible thing that we weren't able to replicate, but we were able to get pretty low. So Joe managed to shoot a 0.00. No, you didn't. I did. And I will tell you, Mike saw it. I saw it with my own eyes, and I couldn't believe it. I will tell you, I shouldn't have ever said this out loud, but it was a total accident.
I followed. I pulled the trigger too soon, and it just happened to time up with the exact second that they called fire. The exact second? No, the exact instant. The exact frame. Hundredth of a second? You're a computer, Joe. But that was just a complete accident. Then we tried doing it again, and it just resulted in me fouling over and over again. But we did get some... Yeah, we got a 0.00x and a 0.07. And you just knew. What's that? It wasn't an accident. Oh my god. It was heart of hearts. And you just knew. That could be it. You can see into the future just a little bit. I like that story better.
We saw a 0.09, I got the 0.09, and then you followed up with a 0.06, which are both very fast, but again, at that point, we were just fouling everybody just to see how far we could get. But that 0.00 was a thing of beauty. I kind of wish I just didn't react and just said, yeah, no big deal. I think that... It was an accident. If there's a way to beat Wild Gunman, that's it.
You know? Or maybe round 100 of gang mode, but... See, there was a moment, like, when I first started playing this game that I thought it was going to be a lot more fun because the first guy that I shot was the guy that his pants fall down. I'm like, wait a second, is it because I shot him, like, around his belt that his pants fell down? And then the next guy came, and then I shot his hat off. And I'm like, wait a second, did I shoot his hat off because I shot him near his head? And I was like, no.
That's just the only animation that I have. And I'm like, this game isn't as good as I thought it was going to be. Yeah, yeah. That would be amazing. If they had that, it would be a lot more fun. We talked about... Sorry, I talked about how Hogan's Alley kind of felt like minigames. Yeah. This really... Like, I actually apologized to Hogan's Alley a little bit because those first two modes essentially are just straight up. Like, those wouldn't even be... Those are like... It's just WarioWare. One, two, switch.
That has a better, like, dual mode than Wild Gunman. And that's a game people just, like, you know, they take a dump on that game now. Like, nobody, you know, everybody's like, oh, one, two, switch. Like, imagine playing Wild... Imagine buying Wild Gunman and having that be your only mode.
Darn. It's like two minigames and then a carnival game. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And carnival games, you know, those went on for a while. Even the Wii saw many carnival games, and those were popular, but they had, like, a, you know, a better gimmick to them than just shoot the screen wherever as long as your reaction time is below 0.4 seconds. Yeah. And even then, it's like, you know, most of the time it's like 0.8 seconds is fine. It's like a game where pretending is a lot of the game. Yeah, we talked about... Sorry, again, I talked about Mike TV liking Hogan's Alley. He would have loved Wild Gunman.
The character on Willy Wonka, Mike TV. Yeah. He would have loved Wild Gunman. He was so into Westerns. Completely forgot about it. Yeah, he always drew his dotted stuff. I thought Mike TV was something that you did. Was that, like, a different version of you that you liked? No, no, no, no. Mike TV, he does it... We talked about this earlier, but he does... Earlier, like, episodes ago. He does appearances. He signs autographs still as Mike TV. That's kind of his thing. He was Mike TV on Willy Wonka. He survived second to last on Willy Wonka.
Not bad. Sorry, Mike TV. They should actually do that. A reality show for Willy Wonka, like, nowadays? Like, how long can you go to survive? But that's another straight thought. Jesus. No more straight thoughts. Let's get right in to the Essential Games list.
All right. It's time for the Essential Games list. And if you don't know what that is, basically, we just are going to vote on where this game belongs in our NES Hall of Fame. And we don't mean Hall of Fame in the sense of, like, how this game performed in 1985. We're talking about today. Would you go back and play this game? And you're probably already quitting out of the podcast because you know how we feel. But maybe we're going to say something interesting. Maybe we're going to be funny for once. Stick around. Let's find out. Joe? I can't promise anything funny, but... Never can. Wow. That was uncalled for.
But I think that the reason that I would say no to this game, the major reason, is that, as you all know, I love Duck Hunt. Praise be to Duck Hunt. Love is a less than strong word here. And I put that on the Essential Games list. And what differentiates this from Duck Hunt is that in Duck Hunt, your aim matters, which means that having the zapper matters. I mean, in game A, you can do this just by pressing the A button at the right time. I mean, you don't really need a mechanism for aiming, really, for any of the modes. So I don't think this is essential.
Yeah, again, I think that this and Hogan's Alley are essentially the same game with different settings. I mean, there are some different, like, very minute details that are different in terms of how they work. But Hogan's Alley didn't make it, neither does this one. You got this game, and you got Red Dead Redemption. Play Red Dead Redemption. Don't play this game. This is not on the list. It's too true. Yeah. It's too true. Forget about how different there are people who are like, oh, no, that's not. It is a comparison. Yeah. Because both of them are trying to simulate the Wild West. They do have duels in that game. Yeah. And so the mini game in Red Dead Redemption is a more complete game than this game.
And to Joe's point, there's nothing. The thing that this game does is that our essential game, Duck Hunt, does it so much better. Yeah. The thing that's so interesting, though, is that this game comes first, then Duck Hunt, then Hogan's Alley. That's the Japanese release order.
What made them decide that these other games wouldn't play out like Duck Hunt, where if you think about it, Duck Hunt, you really have to aim at the duck. Yeah. It's just a box. It's a very, very, you know, like, correct box that you have to hit. And the rest of the screen is registered as like, no, you didn't touch it. Right. Why not just do that for everything else? And those targets are moving. They're fast. It's not even like that. That makes the game harder.
It makes the game more fun. You're shooting away at these ducks like, come on, come on. I got to get him. I got to get him here. I'm just like, you know, I can be blindfolded and play this game. I got it. As long as you told me. Yeah. As long as you told me my zapper is pointing at the screen, I can play it blindfolded. And so for that, not only is this game just a mini game, but similar to like the kind
of complaints I had with Stack Up, you know, where we were talking about like, oh, this game doesn't, you know, it's barely a video game. Yeah. It's barely a video game because you don't necessarily need Rob or anything like that. You don't really need to play this game because it doesn't matter really what you do other than pull the trigger. This game might benefit from using Rob.
Yeah. Use Rob to play this game. You shoot the screen in the area you want Rob to shoot the screen and then Rob shoots that area of the screen for you. Like 30 seconds later. Yeah. He turns slowly and shoots. Yeah. And it decides already where the character's going to come out. Right. So that's when you know to tell Rob to go there. And then if you won, you press start and you tell the game you won. Not bad. All right. So another 0 for 4 on the Essential Games list here.
And that's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia. Join us next time for Wrecking Crew. And be sure to play it yourself if you can. For more Nostalgia, please subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen. And be sure to check out NostalgiaCast.com. That's N-E-S-T-A-L-G-I-A-Cast.com. There you'll find links to the show and show notes as well as our other platforms such as Twitch, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Thank you so much for your support of Nostalgia. We thank you for spending time with us. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter. And I'll talk to you soon.
You know, if you put M&Ms in Faya Yogurt, the color dye comes right off. I mean, that's just what they do with any yogurt. I mean, Yo Crunch. Yo. Yo Crunch, anyone? Yo Crunch. And no one? Yo Crunch. What are we playing, tennis?
Wild Gunman. I know, I guess. Oh, I knew you knew. Nah, I didn't know. Okay. What game is it? Wild Gunman? Wild. Wild Gunman, actually. Wild Gunman. Gunman. Can you just like for the whole episode just say Wild Gunman? Also, should we really be doing this episode? Wild Gunman.
