Playstation 2 + Gun Games

[leapinlew]

I'm thinking of buying a PS2, a couple Guncons and a few titles for the PS2. Anyone here have experience with PS2 lightgun games? Are they good? Specifically Point Blank.

Any gun game recommendations?

[sk8ersublime]

What type of screen do you have? CRT TV- Guncon will be ok. LCD or Arcade Monitor or PC monitor they will not work right out of the box...

My suggestion is to get an LCD gun, basically Wiimotes....I have a TopGun II no issues with it on my PS2.


The games I play

Time Crisis 2 or 3? cant remember they are both good tho...

Vampire Night is a fun one too.

You could go dreamcast and get Confidential Mission, and the House of the Dead series and there are some others too

[DJ_Izumi]

It's pretty good but you'd want both Guncon 1 and Guncon 2s.  Personally I prefer Namco's offical guns, I've tried various third party ones and they were either poorly constructed, uncomfortable or otherwise unrelaible.  Namco's own products on the other hand work great.

The Guncon 1 works for the majority of PS1 games, with a notable exclusion being the PS1 port of Area 51 which predates the Guncon 1 and thusly needs a Konami Justifier.  (This is the only reason I really have third party PS1 guns in addition to the offical products)  But Point Blank 1, 2 and 3 are all great on the PS2 and the PS2 adds the feature of component output so you can get some damn good visuals on a nice component input CRT TV.  I'm always a fan of the 2000 era Sony Trinitron's myself.

On the PS2 front you have the Guncon 2 and a decent selection of games released in North America.  Time Crisis 2, Time Crisis 3, Crisis Zone, Ninja Assault, and Vampire Knight.  There's also Endgame but it's really a generic feeling Time Crisis clone. (There are more availble for Europe/Japan) Time Crisis 2, 3 and Crisis Zone also have the feater of supporting the DualShock2 in ADDITION to the Guncon 2 where every button on the DS2 acts as a duck button.  You could effectively hack two DS2s into being duck pedals like see in the arcades.

A few PS2 games also support the Guncon 1, Vampire Night, Endgame and Time Crisis 2.

Some of my setups running at an anime con:

[severdhed]

I am gathering the components required to do this as well(if i can ever convince my wife to give me the OK).  i don't have any of the PS1 gun games, so i don't know how they are.  i do however have Time Crisis 2, Time Crisis 3, Crisis Zone, and Vampire NIght.  i haven't played crisis zone yet(just bought it a few days ago) but the others work well and are alot of fun.  out of the ones i have, vampire night gets played the most because of the 2 player mode.  Im not sure about crisis zone, but time crisis 2 and 3 are only 1 player...they do have a 2 player mode, but it requires two TVs, to PS2s and two copies of the game and some kind of special cable to link the ps2s together (im assuming it is a mini firewire cable, and this only works with the old style ps2 units)

the ps2 controller as a reload pedel is pretty cool too.  i hacked an old ps2 controller to add a 1/8" mono minijack to one of the button inputs, so i could connect an old pedal i had lying around from my sega saturn gun.

like everyone esle said, you will pretty much need a CRT TV to get it up and running...preferably one with component video inputs.

[DJ_Izumi]

Im not sure about crisis zone, but time crisis 2 and 3 are only 1 player...they do have a 2 player mode, but it requires two TVs, to PS2s and two copies of the game and some kind of special cable to link the ps2s together (im assuming it is a mini firewire cable, and this only works with the old style ps2 units)

Not entirely true!  While this mode does exist (In my photo you can even see a white firewire cable linking the two PS2's, though it's not in use at the time the photo was taken) Time Crisis 2 and 3 also have split screen mode!  Basically two 4:3 windows are squeezed into the frame with a lot of letter boxing at the top and bottom.  The obvious downside of this is that you're playing in squinto-vision, akin to playing four player Goldeneye 64.  Not so bad if you have a large TV on s-video or component though.  But you certianly can do two player on TC2 and TC3 without using iLink.  Crisis Zone on the other hand is entirely single player and it had no multiplayer in the arcades even.

Ninja Assault from Namco is on PS2 though and it also offers two player play much like Vampire Night does.

[severdhed]

my bad...it was just so stupid that i forgot it existed.  trying to play a gun game at split screen on a 27" tv is not much fun.

on a side note, i picked up Endgame today at a local pawn shop for $6..haven't had a chance to play it yet though

[NoOne=NBA=]

I would second the Namco suggestion, especially for the Point Blank series.

None of the other guns I have supports as high a firing rate, as evidenced by the "shoot the train" type levels, where you have to just blast away as fast as possible.
They are the most accurate guns I have as well, once they are calibrated to the game.

I even went to far as to ebay a set of Japanese Namco guns because they have solid black cases, as opposed to the gray with orange end US ones.

[RandyT]

Anyone who is a fan of light gun games should definitely get a full PS2 setup and start watching ebay for good deals on the games.  The GunCon games are the best ones, but there are a few PS1 games which use the early generic style.  They work, but are nowhere near as good.

There is a list on the web someplace that shows all the games with support for the GC/GC2.  I think at this point I have pretty much all of them, except for PointBlank3.  This reminds me to start watching for it again .

RandyT

[Xiaou2]

 Out of all the Gun games out there... My fav is actually from the
Sega Master System.  Its called  Shooting Gallery.  Its hard as Hell, but
awesome fun.

 Its actually similar to point blanc... but the levels seem much longer and more
fun.  Also, you have to beat it consecutively...  No continues.

[DJ_Izumi]

I'm a fan of the PS2 for gun games because it's simple and reliable second party light guns are available all over the used market.  Not only that but it's a hell of a lot easier to set up than guns in MAME, though that's really only true if you're using a CRT TV.

But sex the box down, hook it up, hook up the guns, bam I'm playing Time Crisis?  I'm sorry, I've read all the troubles people have had with guns in mame, getting the calibration to match Mame and then to get mame's calibration to match the emulation it's just... Ugh.

[WhereEaglesDare]

What about Jurassic Park 3, Area 51, etc... were these released on PS2?

[NoOne=NBA=]

Area 51, Maximum Force, Lethal Enforcers 1&2 were all PS1 games, which will all play on the PS2 as well.
I think LE 1&2 used the Konami gun, not the Namco one though.

There are switchable guns on the market that will play all the PS1 games, but none of the ones I've used are as good as the Namco guns for playing the games that support them.

There are some decent Guncon 1/2 switchable guns, to swap back and forth between PS1 and PS2 games, including a few decent wireless ones.
I can't think of the brands and models offhand though.

[DJ_Izumi]

Area 51, Maximum Force, Lethal Enforcers 1&2 were all PS1 games, which will all play on the PS2 as well.
I think LE 1&2 used the Konami gun, not the Namco one though.

Area 51 also requires the Konami Justifier or a generic gun with 'Normal' mode.  Don't ask me why the Justifier is called 'Normal' on Normal/Guncon1/Guncon2 third party guns but every one I've seen it, made from China to the UK to the USA, normal, normal, normal.

Maxumum Force however uses Justifier OR Namco Guncon, shame the same can't be said for Area 51 cause third party guns arn't as good as Namco's own goods and I'd LOVE to play Area 51 with the Guncon1.