Wild Gunman

Encyclopedia : W : WI : WIL : Wild Gunman

Wild Gunman on the NES, Nintendo 1985

Wild Gunman is a light gun game created by Nintendo.

The original version was one of Nintendo's early electro-mechanical arcade games released in 1974. It consisted of a light gun connected to a 16mm projection screen. An image of a Wild West gunslinger was projected onto the screen and when his eyes flashed, the player needed to draw and shoot. If the player was fast enough the projection would change to that of the shot gunman falling down, otherwise it would show the gunman drawing and firing his gun.

An updated video game version of the game was released in the arcades in 1984, replacing photographic images with cartoon-style video game sprites. In this version the player also waited for the opponent's eyes to flash (accompanied by a speech bubble reading "FIRE!!") before shooting. It also featured a shooting gallery where opponents had to be shot from the windows of a saloon. It was available on the PlayChoice 10 system, and also as a two-player Vs. Series version. The Famicom version for use with the Zapper peripheral was released in Japan the same year, and in the US as the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985.

A brief version of the NES game is included as a minigame in Wario Ware, Inc..

An '80s Wild Gunman arcade cabinet makes a cameo appearance in the movie Back to the Future Part II where it is dismissed as a "baby's toy" by children of 2015, because "you have to use your hands". This arcade version of the game was specifically created for the film, since the game was never released in arcades with a dedicated cabinet.

External links

[Front] and [Back] side of the flyer of the original 1974 Wild Gunman movie game (from Arcade Flyer Archive) as well as two pictures [#1]and [#2] of this version (from a AOL member homepage).

Wild Gunman

External links

See also