193 · Shooting Range

• The Game that Seperates the Hot Shots from the Pot Shots
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • Shooting range
    • Targets
    • Carnival Games
    • Axe Throwing
• Overview
  • But how often do you think of shooting real people as a shooting range?
  • Shoot the red and white targets on the character's heads and watch your health bar
• Gameplay
  • Normal Game
    • Wild West
    • Haunted House
    • Moon
      • This video game involves mini-games resembling the Old West; with the exception being the moon level because people did not land on the moon until the 1960s.
  • Party Game
  • Comparison to Hogan’s Alley
    • The surprise is lost in this game
    • The carnival and presentation is stronger in the 85 game
• Zapper Review
  • Duck Hunt/Hogan’s Alley/Wild Gunman
  • Gumshoe
  • Gotcha
  • Freedom Force/Operation Wolf
• EGL
• Next week - Nobunga’s Ambition

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Shooting Range, the game that separates the hot shots from the pot shots.

00:19 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Joe, you're back, but you sound a little sad. Yeah, you sound kind of sad. I'm a little sad. I'm a little sad because I was excited. I was like, you know, I was out for a little while. Then I came back for two episodes and I was out for two more episodes. And now I'm like, finally, I'm back and I can be back and I keep going. And I, you know, I can really give it my all.

00:50 So I sat down and I, you know, I played a good amount of Nobunaga's Ambition. The game we're playing this week. Oh. Yeah. Nobunaga's Ambition. And then just about five minutes ago, we were getting ready and Mike said like, all right, we are ready to record some Shooting Range. And I was like, I've never heard of that game.

01:08 So here I am. I just watched an eight minute video of Shooting Range and I'm just going to be along for the ride and have some reactions. I won't vote at the end and I'll do better next time. Listeners. Yeah. You really kind of threw us into the bus in terms of how we're how people see us in terms of our professionalism. But I do appreciate you keeping the integrity of the essential games list together by not voting. Yeah. So I couldn't bring myself to vote on the essential. Although I should just vote, you know, because like now that Legend of Zelda is not on like really what integrity Legend of Zelda 2 is not on. What integrity is there on the essential games list?

01:49 It's all rigged. I had to get out of the way early this time. Joe, if you don't mind. Yes. Could you maybe tell us your thoughts on Nobunaga's Ambition like in in less than five?

02:01 I would love to. So because I because I have a lot prepared here and I don't want to I don't want it to go to waste. So first of all, just to just to shorten my whole my thought process on it. I am very, very impressed by by Nobunaga's Ambition. I think it's I realized pretty quickly that I can't do what I what I often do and just kind of jump in and figure it out. Like this game needs like research and study before you can before you can play it. The manual alone is like a textbook.

02:34 But but I appreciate the amount of work that went that goes into it and the amount of like detail that that is that is like that you can control in it. The fact that you have to like collect, you know, you're collecting you're basically like managing resources and you're you're changing the value of your town and you're you're selling rice based on like the market price at the time. And like, I mean, I played for quite a bit. I don't think I even scratched the surface of what you can do. I read on so I read up on a lot of different strategies and and stuff that how you can like how you can best, you know, manage yourself in that game and found some like interesting strategies where you I don't know how you guys played, but I ended up taking the.

03:19 The now I'm forgetting the name of it, the Kakazaki, I start I started with with that territory, which is like the island up north where there's only one territory bordering it. And then this is all from a from someone that online that like had advice like this. But then I would take over the one right below it. And then I would have all of my troops in the one below it, which is the only one that enemies can access, but I'm still getting resources from two different places, all my troops in one place. And I sort of kind of moved out that way, making sure that there's always only a couple of points that could be battlegrounds for my those choke points. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then but I would get all kinds of resources, all kinds of taxes.

04:02 I mean, I found that fascinating that you can raise the taxes and lower the taxes. And the more you raise the taxes, the more you're the less loyalty the people will have. And there might be like a revolt. I mean, really just crazy amounts of detail. So I am really impressed. And I if you want my like overall essential vote, I got I had a lot of other things to talk about, but I won't waste too much time here.

04:26 I think that this is first of all, you know, it's maybe a little bit of a niche market of like who would be into who is into this genre. I know a lot of people love this genre. But I think even among those fans that like this kind of game, this is kind of niche because of like, it's got a little bit of lack of like a lack of a nice coat of paint. There's there's just something about the limitations of the NES that make this, I think, to most people.

04:52 A hard entry point into this genre. And I think that like as much as people who really like this stuff might might really enjoy this and really appreciate it and like the level of detail in it. I think that it's. It's it's the perfect example of a genre that that had so much improvement to be made that it might not be worth it for someone to jump back for everyone to jump back to this. I don't think I can call it essential for everyone. I think it's like if you love these games, go back, give it a try. You'll probably like it. But I can't say that I would call it essential just for the fact that I feel like there's a there's a quite a barrier to entry.

05:30 All right. I like the first of great sum. That was like I think we tried to talk about the game a lot more than that. And it took us a long time to get to the points that you got to. So I really appreciate that. But also, like I was surprised to know how many of our listeners like played this game, not like for the podcast, but even just like as kids, like rented it at game at a game store,

05:54 like, you know, not knowing probably what they were getting into or just like being aware of it. This seems like one that just like is not talked about anymore. So I'm kind of surprised by the reception that we got for the episode and everything like that. But I think we all kind of came to that same agreement. Right. Yeah. It's it's a novelty thing, even for the audience that enjoys it. And if you don't enjoy that, you're definitely not going to like this.

06:18 Yeah, I really I really appreciate the it was like a kid's vote. You know, when you were in like elementary school, did you guys have kids vote where you went and voted up for president and stuff? Yeah. I like this is a really good like kids vote for the essential games list. Like you definitely agreed. It didn't count, but it was still a very good, a very good summary and a very good analysis. Yeah. So now, like when I grow up, I can actually maybe be affecting the essential games. Yeah. When you grow up, you can vote for the essential games list. Yeah. I might run for essential game.

06:56 Yeah. And maybe one day, you know, when you grow up, you'll be good at Nobunaga's ambition. Yeah. I don't think so. I don't think that that's that's never say never. That's something I would put on a resume like completed Nobunaga's ambition. I think you get any job. 50 province edition. Yeah. 50, 50 thieves edition.

07:17 Okay. So can we, can we move on now? Are we good to talk about the actual game that everybody is tuning in for this week? They've had enough. We gave them like over an hour of Nobunaga. All right. Let's, let's do it. I'll, I'll, I'll tag along.

07:49 I have a weird start to my like thought process about shooting range. Like let's not even talk about the game for a minute. Right. But when you think of a shooting range, right? I'm thinking like, you know, targets like with the guys in the silhouettes and they have the, uh, you know, targets on their chest. Or I'm thinking like a carnival game, right? Where you have like, whether it's a water blaster or a little BB gun or something, and you try to knock down some, some bottles or something, or maybe even a different kind of range, right? Where it's like an archery or an ax throwing thing.

08:24 I, for some reason, starting up this game, didn't think that I was getting the kind of shooting range where you shoot real people with targets over their heads, but don't shoot the people. Like, I don't understand this. This doesn't even feel like a shooting range to me. Sean, can you help me out a little bit?

08:43 Well, I mean, okay. So you pretty much just said all of the talking points for this episode in that, in that one run on sentence. Um, yeah, this game is, it's just like any other, like, yeah, shooting game that we play that the light gun, whether it's like, uh, uh, the paintball one or the, the other one with the, the, the terrorists on the plane or like, whatever, all of those, it's like those, except you're not shooting people and there's no implication that you're hurting them. It's just a bunch of things, whether it's, uh, whether it's people in like the old West or, uh, ghosts in the old West or, or, uh, uh, some stuff in space, the moon. Yeah. Some stuff on the moon.

09:30 Um, regardless of what they are, they're all just holding the same target and you're not supposed to shoot them. You're supposed to shoot the target. And that, that's pretty much it. Like you, you shoot them. They drop like energy pickups. It, it's all very strange. Right. Pretend it's a simulation though. Right. Like you're supposed to believe that like all of this is just for fun and you're being tested on your skills. Why would the objective be to shoot the like peppermint wheels above their heads rather than the actual people?

10:00 Like, yeah, if I see a, if I see a vampire that like looks like it wants to suck my blood or some kind of strange monster, like hiding around. Native American. Excuse me. It's like crazy. Right. It's like, why is that a target?

10:15 Okay. Well, uh, also, you know, bandits are, are on the same screen. Um, but like, but there's actually no way, but there's no discerning. Like what is abandoned and what is a native American? Like, no, I'm saying like you should hit both because they both have targets over their head. The targets are there. But I guess like what my, what I was about to say only makes sense. I'm talking about vampires, ghosts, and monsters.

10:38 I would much rather shoot the vampire ghost and monster than I would a target that it's holding. That's true. And you would assume that even in a simulation, it would be okay to shoot the ghost knowing that like would do something. Whereas obviously shooting a ghost with bullets. I mean, I don't really know too much about ghosts, but I'm assuming that's like useless, right? You can't shoot a ghost. Well, I've never tried. I mean, you can't know. Have you ever tried a ghost in real life? What are you shooting? Is it, is it buckshot?

11:09 Oh, you mean like Joe, you were talking about what kind of ammunition are you shooting? Yeah. Like, is it like, do you have like ghostbuster weapons or something? Oh, that's, that's true. I'm talking about bullets. I'm talking about like, well, actually, Joe, great point. The game never shows you what you're shooting and we can only assume that it is a revolver because the zapper is kind of like a revolver. So, you know, maybe for all we know in that particular thing, we are holding some ghost busting device.

11:40 True. And it's got to have silver bullets for the vampires, right? And, uh, yeah, all that's happening on screen. That's pretty much all, that's pretty much all you can assume. Like, cause like, that's the one thing that like needs a special kind of bullets. I think you're shooting even, uh, uh, I think you're shooting even like the, the xenomorphs on the moon or the, uh, the bottles in the bar with silver bullets. Yeah. I like that. It's, uh, I like that you can have that sentence where you're fighting the xenomorphs on the moon. We also just talked about fighting the vampires. And then there's one level that's just like the, it's just like a carnival game.

12:42 Yeah. to get to the next stage. And I'm not asking for the game to be easy or anything, but the repetition of just seeing the same two types of enemies over and over and over again until you satisfy some point threshold is like we're way past that because this isn't an arcade game. This was made for the NES, so there should have been either more things to do on a particular stage, right?

13:10 Like I could think even just in the Wild West setting, right? There's so much other things that you could shoot that could even just be fun interactive things like shooting a little beer bottle on the side of a saloon or something and that getting you extra bonus points. There's so many other things you could do, but at the end of the day, the game just wants you to be like shoot the peppermint wheel.

13:31 Yeah, I mean, I kind of disagree with what you're saying and then it's not an arcade game. Yeah, it's not an arcade cabinet and you're not playing it at the arcade, but this game from top to bottom is designed to be an at-home arcade game. Like everything is points. At the end, it shows you a score table. You get medals.

13:55 Like this is totally supposed to be played in that way, but I do agree that like this would be a lot more interesting if it did stuff that isn't particularly arcade-like, like those cute little interactive bits. Like I think like if you're in the Wild West, there's got to be like a weird building with a bell and if you shoot the bell, the bell rings and stuff like that, that sort of stuff. But like, no, this is the most, the purest and barest form of just a light gun competition, I guess.

14:29 Yeah, because I guess that's what I was trying to say is like, yes, it is an arcade game, like totally taking inspiration from all that stuff. But we've decided, at least on this show, that like the console experience needs to offer something like different, right? The reason to play it at home. The arcade gets away with this because you put it in the quarter, you get your like five minutes of fun, and then you like walk away from it and the next kid puts in his quarter. When you buy the game at full price and then it just winds up to be the five-minute experience, now we have a problem.

14:59 It's pretty incredible like that, like there's, yeah, there's the three settings that granted that there's four games and then like one bonus mode with like, where it just says shooting range and you shoot, you shoot the targets without any, without any dressing like ghosts or xenomorphs. It's just targets coming out of holes. But, so that's a total of five different,

15:24 I guess, like backgrounds, like painted backdrops to do the exact same thing. It's very, I don't know like what, how much of this game costs when it came out, but I hope it wasn't full price.

15:37 I think that what it's, you know, what it misses is like, I think it's nicely like represented in those first three light gun games we played, which were Duck Hunt, Wild Gunman, and... Hogan's Alley. Hogan's Alley, thank you. Where like they each kind of gave you like a different reason to play a light gun game. Whereas like Duck Hunt was all about aim.

15:59 Hogan's Alley was all about like decision making, quick decision making. And Wild Gunman was all about like reflexes and reaction time. Whereas this just doesn't, I mean, I guess this is about aim also, but like worse than Duck Hunt.

16:14 It looks like, I mean, was it easier than Duck Hunt or was it harder? It was way easier. Yeah, it looks easier. The problem is, like you're saying, in Duck Hunt, it's about aim because the ducks move sporadically across the screen, but also like diagonally, left to right. They appear in and out. Here, because you're, I mean, like I guess like the ghosts and the vampires are somewhat of an exception to that. And, you know, I'm saying for the most part, the enemies just move horizontally across the screen. And if you give them enough time, then they'll shoot back at you or whatever. But otherwise it's, you know, it's a straight shot to set up. You just have to be prepared for them to appear on the screen.

16:52 Yeah, yeah. I just think that if, yeah, if a game is going to use the light gun, it seems so far from what we've seen. We've gotten a couple others that I liked, but I feel like if a game is going to use the light gun, it needs to do something unique or just something interesting and different, you know? Like there's, I feel like the light gun is not a game in and of itself. And I feel like some of these developers seem to think that like, hey, as long as you can aim and shoot, we can make a game. But like, I feel like it does need a good reason to like deserve light gun use. Yeah. Right. And it's kind of bizarre that, you know, the three games that you mentioned are 1985 games. And I wouldn't just say that like,

17:36 they're stronger from a gameplay perspective. I think the presentations are even better in like, say, let's just use Hogan's Alley as an example there, right? Because they're kind of trying to do the same thing, like a shooting range. Granted that Hogan's Alley is more of like a test of decision making on you make sure you don't kill the good people. But like that was done, like so smart from a perspective of having it be at a, like FBI training headquarters and everybody being cardboard cutouts. And you have to wait for them to appear, you know? Here, all of that is lost in favor of like,

18:11 what looks like those first rounds of like third party games that we were getting when people started making games for the NES. This one just feels like it's jumping into the party so late, but missing all of the directions that the Zapper has gone in since. I mean, you have Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, and Wild Gummen laid down the like blueprint, right? But then you had Gumshoe, which tried something completely different and tried to do like a platformer with the Zapper. And even Gotcha, you know, made it into like a- Gotcha the sport, yes. Yeah, made it into like a competitive, like sporting thing with paintball and stuff.

18:48 Freedom Force and Operation Wolf. Operation Wolf's an essential game right now. And both of those took everything that we liked about Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, and Wild Gummen and put like a narrative over them and made it a more like cohesive experience where like the levels get tougher and you have to use all three of those skills, decision-making, aim, and reflexes. Very time crisis-y. Right, exactly. Shooting range goes back on all of that and instead makes like the equivalent of like a modern day plug-and-play game. Yeah, this is definitely regressive, I would say, in terms of game design and just effort, it seems. I don't really know what else to say about this game. I have something to say. It's surprising, okay?

19:37 You know, sometimes you guys are shocked when I don't have all the information. I remember, Sean, recently I didn't get to like the end, I didn't know how like the game ended and you were like, what do you mean? You're like the host of the show, right? And I agree, that's my problem. Like I should have known. However, it's even more concerning when I feel like Wikipedia doesn't know what's going on. And I went to shooting range. I went to the Wikipedia stub for shooting range. And it says, this video game involves mini games resembling the old west, with the exception being the moon level. Oh my God, I read this. I read that. It's so funny. Until the 1960s.

20:17 And I think... That has to be like some guy making a joke and it just got through. Like nobody, none of the editors caught it and it just has stayed there. I don't know how long that edit has been live, but we read the same thing. I laughed out loud when I read that. I like the idea that it's suggesting that this moon level represents more of the 1960s. Like once we landed on the moon, yeah, then we were fighting xenomorphs and like two-eyed frog monsters. Or that the game is supposed to be like

20:50 based on a true story or something. Right, right. Or that the haunted house is like definitively wild west or old west in their words, right? Like I wouldn't say that. I mean, I guess maybe a little bit like the house itself looks like it's from the 1800s, but I wouldn't assume, unless the ghost is wearing a cowboy hat and I missed it. Well, it definitely, I mean, look at, if you look at the stuff, like it's definitely like in the desert and ish, because it's not green on the ground. I mean, that said, there is an inexplicably evil looking

21:28 like tree in the background, which isn't very western, but it kind of looks like old westy. Yeah, I thought it looked like a haunted saloon or something. Yeah. All right, all right. Conceding even that, the sentence still just doesn't even make sense. Even though people did not land on the moon until the 1960s, the game came out in 1989. All right? That's the 20th anniversary of the landing on the moon. Oh, there it is. So, if anything, you know, every game should feature the moon by that logic.

22:03 No, that's a great, that was a great, that's one of my favorite sentences on Wikipedia. Yeah. And this is supposed to be a party game, right? Like, at the end of the day, this is supposed to be a game that like you and a couple friends like take turns or play the two-player mode of the, literally, the mode is called party game.

22:23 You know, you're supposed to do that, and yet I can't feel like this, you know, this particular two-player experience, it doesn't feel alive. It doesn't actually feel like two people would be playing together, if that makes sense. It's almost like you're just both shooting at things on the screen and they're happening, but when you play the party game mode by yourself, the second player's stuff is still up and moving and activating and it's just like you can hit those two if you want or just ignore them because that's supposed to be when you have a second zapper.

22:55 Oh, so you can play that simultaneously. I thought it was like turn, like you take turns. Oh, you know, I guess that's true. It doesn't really make sense then, right? I was thinking you would need like a multi-tap for that, you know, so this way you would have the port for it, but yeah, I guess you would take turns. I guess, I just interpreted that as like, it looks like it's for both players to play at the same time, but I was giving the game too much credit. Of course the game wouldn't let you play at the same time.

23:19 Yeah, I don't know how that would work. No, well, it should work. I mean, yeah, in like in the, in a perfect world, but I don't know. Yeah, well, that's true, right? Technically the way the zapper works, it can only record like one input at a time. If both people shoot, it's not going to register the other person's shot. Yeah. Is that necessarily true? I know that there's a way that they can, you can have like, you can have one,

23:44 I guess it depends. Yeah, I guess it is true. You can have, you can have things blinked. Were the authority on, on 80s camera in gun technology. So, how dare you? Joe, you are right, theoretically, because technically like it, the frame is captured as like that particular shooter's frame. But if there were two players, you know, I don't know how many, how often they would land on the same exact frame of the shot. Theoretically, they could stagger their shots and both would be registered. Yeah, I was thinking of how they're able to have two targets on the screen and have them blink like a different amount of times and that would register, but I was confusing that with having two zappers. Still feel like there might be a way,

24:32 but I don't know how. Also, Sean, I didn't hear what you said, but it sounded like you insulted me. I can't tell. Oh, it was a little bit like that, yeah. Okay. I think he said he has like a PhD in zapper technology. okay. In 1980s zapper technology. Yeah. Here's a little trivia thing, okay? Bandai made this game and for only the Japanese audience, Bandai made their own like zapper gun.

25:03 I forget what it's called. I think it was called like the ultra gun or something like that and it's like an Uzi instead of a revolver and I just think like what's even funnier is was that Uzi made to be paired up with shooting range? Like, is that what you were using? Is it a single shot Uzi? Yeah, a single shot Uzi that also, I don't know about you guys, but to me, I don't think they had Uzis in the old west.

25:30 Well, they did on the moon. They had them on the moon. Check the Wikipedia page. When were Uzis invented? It should say right on the wiki. Yeah, I'm going to find the name of that, um, that Bandai guns this way everybody knows what I'm talking about, but maybe you two could come up with one more thing to say about shooting range in the meantime. Uh, yeah, I got it. Go ahead. Go ahead, Joe. No, you played the game. I did play the game.

25:54 I would say that one of the most inexplicable scenes in this game is after, is after you finish the shooting range, like party game thing, and then you get this, uh, this two frame animation that just says, congratulations, you were a wonderful player. And then for some reason, like you're, you're on the top of a podium. No one else is there. There's no second or third place, but you're just surrounded by

26:20 either playboy playmates or bunny women. I don't really know what it means, uh, but it's there. Uh, and I think you're also in space. Uh, so that's, that's sort of where this game is. I, I don't know what kind of

26:35 Freudian techniques I could come up with to describe, like, the decision making there, but it's there. Also, you're in space, I'm looking at it now, you're in space, but if you look behind you, the stars are in, like, this weird, like, just certain tiles have stars. Yeah. Like this weird, like, grid form, and then others tiles are just completely blank. I think it's the cosmic background radiation of the universe, like, that might be what that is. Um, oh, yeah, that must, yeah, that must be what they're going for. Uh, did anybody, uh, pause the game?

27:06 Uh, I did not. I, I did not pause. I didn't think of a reason to pause. The game, the game gives you a lot of time between enemies and stuff to deal with things, so I didn't think, of a reason to pause. What do you got? Well, I was just going to say that it gives me incentive. I was curious if there was any interesting pause sounds or anything that was happening. It gives me incentive to go back and play. Yeah, Joe, why don't you, like, after this episode, go back and play, uh, shooting range, and then at the top of the next episode, we'll talk for five or six minutes about, uh, the pause sound. Honestly, I will just have to be catching up now for the rest of the whole series. I'm going to have to, every episode, talk about the episode before.

27:47 I might really do that. I think that's a great idea. I think you should do that. We'll see. Uh, you know, here's the thing, okay, I did find the name of the, um, the other, the Bandai official

28:02 Famicom Zapper accessory that they released, and that was a mouthful of words. But then, Sean, you got me thinking about the bunny girls, right? And I, I think that is like, that's a thing in Japan. I don't think that's like Playboy, uh, bunnies. I think that's like, you know, I'm thinking about like that episode of Dragon Ball where Bulma has to dress up like a bunny girl, and I think that's just like a thing in culture. She has to? She has to. It's like an iconic costume of hers.

28:26 Okay. and that was around the same time, you know, Dragon Ball was big in Japan in 89, so. Yeah, I wonder, I wonder what that's about. Yeah, it was called the Hyperscope, um, was the name of the Bandai. Did it come with a scope? What? Did it come with a scope? It did not come with a scope as best as I can tell. It literally, honestly, if you brought this thing to school, you would be like, you know, you would not make it to second period.

28:54 with this thing. And I'll show you guys right now, but I will also post in the, um, in the show notes here for everybody else this way they can see it. But this is like, Oh dear God. Yeah, I can see why they never brought this thing over to North America just because that's a problem. Like, that looks like it's like heavy too. It's got a clip. Like, that doesn't look like cheap plastic.

29:15 Yeah, they should have made, like, yeah, they should have put like an orange, like tip on it or something. Yeah, usually you can see that from the side, but no, that looks like either somebody painted over it or that's just how it came. I guess like, you know, the, uh, the, uh, the NES cord, um, coming from the stock would, would tip you off, but it's easy to hide that.

29:40 And what do you think about the conspiracy theory of Bandai naming their, um, accessory, the hyperscope and Konami officially releasing, even in North America, the laser scope. That was the thing that you wore on your head that for some reason had like a microphone looking thing on it. And, um, you could also use that as a zapper. It's a, it was like a voice command. It was a voice command zapper. Shoot.

30:08 Yeah. Did you like look? You would point that. You looked at the target? Yeah, you would look through the target and wherever you saw, allegedly, it would shoot that particular thing on screen, but you would have to, you know, you probably would just say, ah, over and over again. And it's like, shoot. I can't imagine. Sean, would you really say shoot? Like, after the 10th time of wearing that thing, would you? I mean, okay, so what game, was it released with a game? Is it like a futuristic, like space combat game or something that would make some contextual sense to have this ridiculous thing? Or was it just like, oh, have this now? Well, the best I can tell, there's no game coming up on our list that Konami made

30:52 that would have been bundled with this, but, because otherwise, like, yeah, I mean, I would probably go, oh, wait, here it is. I did get it. It's called Laser Invasion and we'll be playing it in 1991. All right. Well, I think that's enough time to get our hands on one of these. I'm going to get my hands on one of these. Don't you worry about it. I think this looks cool. I want one of these now. It's got stereo turbo.

31:16 Stereo turbo. I think they mean two separate things. I think they mean it has stereo sound and turbo activation or something, but I don't know how. What would turbo is your own voice, right? Like, you would just say, shoot, shoot. You just have to say it faster. You would be the turbo. You could just run your lip, Maybe you could like, it's like holding the button down. You could just say like, Right, but wouldn't you just be like,

31:38 like, wouldn't you just do that and that's the turbo? No, I think like, okay. If you don't want to be immersed. Yeah, if I want to be immersed in this future game that this episode isn't about and I'm wearing this ridiculous device that's probably not going to fit our heads because it's made for children. That kid's got a big head. The kid in the box has a huge head. That's true. I would, I would just say things like, engage, or like, make it so, or things for Star Trek, I think. Because it looks like from this box that you're supposed to be, you're like giving the command for someone else to shoot, right? Well, no, it's like, you know, it's just a futuristic, uh, advanced targeting solution.

32:16 Oh, I just thought because of those helicopters behind you that you're like, commanding them. Oh, okay. I guess that works. I mean, it could be either way. I want to use this for like, duck hunt. I want to have this like, futuristic thing on and be like, just quack. Engage. On that duck. Engage. I like the idea of you wearing a laser scope and just going to your like, public park and the duck just being like, oh shit. Like, it's, it's this guy.

32:47 All right. And that's how you draw out an episode of shooting range. Yeah. We hit that 30 minute mark. Yeah. We are definitely at the 30 minute mark and we can now safely move into the most obvious thing that happens on every single episode. We, we have never missed it. Uh, it is called the essential games list and we're going to do it right now. What do we do on the essential games list,

33:09 well, Sean, I'm going to stop you right there because everybody knows what we do on the essential games list. So let's just do it. And let's start with you. Please vote. Okay. Um, from what you've gathered, uh, this is a pretty bare bones entry into the NES catalog. Uh, not even like, even if we're just going by light gun games, like this is the most standard, like template of a game that I can think of. So, in no way is this essential. Uh, no. No. I don't think you've ever been so definitive. I don't think you've ever said no. No. All right. Joe, you're not voting, but do you have any last words? What? are you going to kill me now? Yeah, you want my, you want my kids pick the president vote? Yeah. Could we get, like, yeah. Exactly.

34:09 Um, yeah, I mean, I, I think it's all been said, but I, it's, it's clearly like, it feels like a prototype, like, uh, like beta test of like, what could be done before Duck Hunt even came out. Uh, you know what I mean? Like, it feels like it's just like a proof of concept almost. It's, it's so simple. I don't know what the, uh, idea was with making, not, like making them real targets, but the not real targets, having, having them go everywhere. It looks kind of strange. I don't know, maybe when I play it, I'll change my mind, but right now I'm going to say no.

34:45 All right. No. It's, yeah, it's, it's definitely a no from me as well, but if we put games on the essential games list just based on their titles, this one still wouldn't make it. It's not a shooting range. It doesn't feel like a shooting range. It doesn't know what a shooting range is. And who knows? Maybe it's called old west haunted house on the moon in Japan. And that like makes a lot of sense. And it's like, Oh, maybe it should be on the essential games list, but because they butchered the localization, I cannot put it on the essential games list. Wait, hold on. And I think I may have just resurrected this game, so to speak.

35:23 Shooting range. The first episode is out west. People have ranges out west home, home on the range. You're shooting on the range, shooting range. Oh my gosh. It was it. And the moon is a great range away from us. Yes. Then there's probably one more thing we can fit in there, right? Yeah. Well, what's the haunted house, right? It's like, it's, you know, the weather goes surreal. Like, you know, there's a large range on that spectrum.

35:56 Yeah. Even in a haunted house. There's a wide range of enemies on the haunted house. Yes, exactly. If the, if the haunted house is old enough, the people that live there may have called their stove a range.

36:08 Right. Oh, there you go. Great. Okay. So maybe it is, but I don't think you resurrected it enough. Oh, okay. But that, sorry. You did do it. You did a good try and we're going to try to get another game on the essential games list next week when we play street cop, a game that is one of those things where like when you type in street cop on Wikipedia, it redirects you to the power pad page. It doesn't even get its own page. It is a power pad game. And that's surprising. What do you think a street cop power pad game is like? Um, are you just chasing bad guys like down the street?

36:48 Yeah. You're just a cop with some sick dance moves. It's like DDR, but for cops. Ooh, I think we want to see, didn't we talk about street club though? Street cop at one point. I don't remember that. I think we did because it has a clubbing action on the power. Oh, clubbing. I think we were saying like, yeah, like tap with your right foot to club or something. I think we said this like a hundred episodes ago when we were first covering power pad games. Wow. That's a great memory you have there. Well, we're doing a great job. Um, yeah, well, nobody has a better memory than Joe.

37:24 Yeah. Well, I, it wasn't a memory problem. It was just me not looking at the right game. Um, I still want to see, uh, a game that, that incorporates the power pad and the zapper. That would be great. You know, you can run and shoot almost like VR.

37:43 Right. And it could get the, uh, virtual boy advance. There you go. Plug them all in. Why not? Let's get all those things next week. Join us every Friday, 8 a.m. I'm hoping the episodes. That's like a whole nother time. If you live in another time zone, but don't worry. It comes to you too. Stay on Fridays, unless you live in like Australia, I suppose by then it's Saturday.

38:05 Uh, I think we have an Eastern standard time zone. Yeah. What Australian listener, uh, do we have? And do you listen to these episodes on Saturday? That's an interesting question. Australian listener, because we do have one of you. So please let us know on, uh, the Twitter at nostalgia cast. Uh, we'd love to hear your thoughts as somebody who sees the world upside down. And until then put way too much pressure on this. You don't, you don't have to respond. You can just keep listening if you want. Oh yeah, that's true too. Everybody's allowed to keep listening, but the people who tweeted us stay in our brains. Okay. ...

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