There are a few types of games you see at every arcade, no matter what. There are pinball machines, sit-down racing games, and light-gun games. A light-gun game is a game in which you must use a gun-like controller to aim at the screen and pull the trigger in order to take out enemies on the screen.

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They are called light-gun games because, in the early days of the genre, when you pulled the trigger, the screen went black, and all of the targets lit up white, and the gun registered if it was pointing at one of the lit areas. Unfortunately, newer televisions are incapable of playing light gun games because they do not emit IR light. To give some love to a genre that now exclusively lives in arcades, here are the 10 best light-gun games of all time.

10 Laser Ghost

When it comes to light-gun games in the 8-bit era, Sega had Nintendo beat. The Sega Master System has many great light-gun games like Operation Wolf, Rescue Mission, and Laser Ghost. Like the majority of light-gun games, Laser Ghost was first released in the arcade before being ported over to the Sega Master System.

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While the arcade version of Laser Ghost was your standard light-gun affair, the Sega Master System port tried something different. Rather than enemies approaching the screen to attack you, they instead attack the girl on screen and you must protect her by firing at any of the obstacles or enemies that get in her way.

9 Area 51

Area 51 came out when digitized graphics were all the rage. Rather than the game having sprites, it instead had actual pictures of peoples and objects that you would shoot at, something that was made incredibly popular by Mortal Kombat, which was released a few years prior.

As you may have expected from the name, in Area 51, you fight against aliens and try to help fellow soldiers through various environments. You must avoid shooting soldiers and instead aim for the genetically modified zombie soldiers and aliens in order to progress to the next stage.

8 Point Blank

Point Blank is a wacky personality-filled light-gun game that presents short mini-games you must complete similar to the WarioWare games. There are six different stages based on different skill sets included memory, accuracy, intelligence, simulation, visual acuity, and speed. At the end of the game, you are graded based on your skill in each.

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Point Blank was ported over to the Playstation 1 and later got two sequels that also started off in arcades before being brought home to the Playstation 1. There was also a sequel made specifically for the Nintendo DS called Point Blank DS.

7 Dino Stalker

Dino Stalker is part of the Dino Crisis universe and was known as Gun Survivor 3: Dino Crisis in Japan. Dino Crisis started off as a Resident Evil style survival-horror game with dinosaurs that had two games on the Playstation 1 and a third game on the original Xbox before they created a light-gun spin-off.

Dino Stalker is part of the same series as Resident Evil Survivor, Resident Evil: Dead Aim, and Resident Evil Survivor 2: Code Veronica and was developed specifically for the Playstation 2, never seeing a release in arcades.

6 Ninja Assault

Ninja Assault has the distinction of being set in feudal Japan in the era of samurai. Ninja Assault’s development was done by two light-gun master’s, Sega and Namco, two names that are synonymous with fantastic light-gun games.

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Unlike most light-gun games that see you standing in one spot for a prolonged period of time, Ninja Assault has you jumping from roof-top to roof-top always on the move and changing the setting like a real ninja!

5 Vampire Night

Vampire Night stars two vampire hunters who are going through a Victorian-era town, saving townsfolk, killing vampires, and earning points along the way. Like with most light-gun games, the voice acting is horrible, though it almost seems like an intentional decision to give the game a B-horror movie feel.

Throughout the game, you will come across villagers who have been infected with a parasite that will turn them into a vampire. If you are accurate enough, you can shoot off the parasite and save the villager, earning you some extra points in the process. If you simply kill them, they will be reborn as a vampire, and you must kill them again.

4 Dead Space: Extraction

Dead Space: Extraction takes place on the USG Ishimura before the events of the first Dead Space game. You start off on a lively and fully-populated ship, but, before long, the entire ship is overrun by necromorphs, and you are tasked with taking them out.

The game was initially released for the Nintendo Wii, but it was later ported over to the Playstation 3 where you had the option of using a Playstation Move controller. Like every other game in the Dead Space series, in Dead Space: Extraction, you must dismember the enemies to finish them off rather than attempting to go for headshots.

3 Time Crisis 3

The Time Crisis series is notable for adding the additional option to duck in cover while going through the game. This is also how you reload but is also a great way to avoid enemy bullets. In Time Crisis 3, you can unlock different weapons for taking out enemies, including a shotgun and machine gun.

While the arcade version of Time Crisis 3 provided a pedal you could press on to go into cover, the Playstation 2 version came with no such peripheral. Instead, you would have to press a button on the gun, though the option to use a section controller as a pedal is also available.

2 The House of the Dead 2

The House of the Dead 2 was developed by Sega and originally released for arcades before being brought home on the Sega Dreamcast, then later ported over to the PC, and then the Nintendo Wii. The game has seen multiple sequels over the years, with the latest being House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn, which was released exclusively for arcades in 2018.

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The House of the Dead 2 gave players the option to choose different paths as they went through the story which created a lot of replayability for the game as you would need to play it multiple times to see everything it had to offer.

1 Elemental Gearbolt

Elemental Gearbolt takes the classic light-gun gameplay and adds in RPG elements. As you go through the stage you collect points you can later use to upgrade your character. Rather than typical guns, the characters use magically infused guns in a fantasy setting. The game uses a mix of sprites and polygonal background to create a very unique look.

Each level has 10 different fairies which you must shoot to earn more points and upgrade your character further. Elemental Gearbolt also features full-motion anime cutscenes through which the story is told.

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