For those of us who spent the nineties haunting dimly lit arcades, the sound of a plastic slide snapping back and the frantic shouting of “Reload!” is a core memory. For years, the death of the CRT television meant these light gun classics were relegated to the collectors sections of Ebay or the dusty corner of the garage next to the box of cables you might need one day. However with the release of the G’AIM’E Light Gun the nostalgia is living it’s best life as a super powered peripheral that brings Time Crisis back to modern flat screens without the need for clunky sensor bars or retro hardware.
Throw back with me for a moment as I remember when these games first came out. I was working behind the counter of a “Games R Us” the gaming “news” wasn’t as readily available and we recieved some posters for Point Blank. “That looks crap!” my boss said, but we ordered a few and played them when they came in. The most fun we’d had in years. We couldn’t keep the stock on shelves, these games actually moved PlayStation hardware, there were so many people walking in having played the titles on arcade and wanting that same experience at home and in many ways it delievered.
The Hardware: A Nostalgic Heavyweight
Straight out of the box, the G’AIM’E gun feels impressively substantial. It takes obvious design cues from the legendary Namco GunCon on PlayStation, sporting instead a vibrant blue and orange aesthetic. It is solidly built, lightweight enough for a long session, but sturdy enough to survive an accidental drop during a particularly heated stage.
The “Ultimate” bundle even includes the iconic arcade foot pedal. In Time Crisis, this was your bread and butter, step on it to pop out of cover and shoot, release it to duck and reload. While you can use buttons on the side of the gun to perform these actions like the PlayStation version of the game used to, nothing beats the physical sensation of stomping on a pedal to dodge a hail of bullets in full arcade style. It transforms a simple game into a physical experience that modern “point-and-click” titles simply cannot replicate.
The biggest selling point of the G’AIM’E system is its internal chipset. The G’AIM’E uses a camera and “trained” AI to recognise the boundaries of your TV screen naturally.
According to the developers, the AI has been trained on thousands of different screen types to understand exactly where the “play zone” is. In practice, this means your TV looks like a TV, not a framed digital photo. It is a seamless, elegant solution that keeps the immersion intact.
Performance
Now that’s where the learning curve hits you. You need to find that “sweet spot”, and once you do the accuracy is genuinely fantastic. Hitting a distant sniper in Time Crisis or a tiny target in Point Blank feels as sharp as it did in 1995. It still blows me away just how accurate that old tech was. The main difference here is that this system is a bit of a stickler for environment.
Because the gun is essentially a camera “looking” at the screen, lighting is everything. If your room is flooded with sunlight or you have a second monitor glowing nearby, the cursor might jitter like it has had one too many espressos.
You will also need to recalibrate every time you change your standing position. It requires a bit of mucking around to get perfect, but once it is dialled in, the experience is pure arcade bliss.
The Games: A beautiful Trip Down Memory Lane
The device functions as a mini-console, coming pre-loaded with a selection of Namco hits. Depending on your bundle, you get, my bundle included:
- Time Crisis: The undisputed king of the genre.
- Point Blank: A frantic, hilarious collection of mini-games.
- Steel Gunner 1 & 2: Classic 2D shooters for those who like their action loud and heavy.
Now this system is currently locked down so there is no Wi-Fi and no official way to “add” more games later, so what if Time Crisis 2 comes out later? Well, they suggest it may be a new full package purchase. But it would be good to see an add on instead and maybe even some user generated content for the device in the future.
The Verdict
The G’AIM’E Light Gun isn’t just a peripheral, it’s a time machine. While the setup requires some patience and the lack of an expandable library is a minor letdown, the sheer absolute joy of playing Time Crisis on a 65-inch OLED is hard to beat. If you are looking to reclaim your title as the arcade king from the comfort of your couch, this is the gear to do it.
The best way to grab this is probably via JB Hi-Fi where you can pick up the two guns and all the games for $449. Considering an unusable original gun on its own is selling on Ebay for $500, it’s actually a bargain.
