The Final NES Launch Games - Wild Gunman and Wrecking Crew

NES Catalog #016 and #017

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Wild Gunman

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PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Nintendo

RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18th, 1984 (JP), Oct. 1985 (US), Feb. 15th, 1988 (EU)

ALSO AVAILABLE ON: Arcade, Wii U Virtual Console

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Today, when retro enthusiasts think of Wild Gunman, they either remember grimacing cowboys losing their hat/trousers/dignity after being shot or that scene in "Back to the Future Part II" where Marty McFly destroys the arcade version. Wild Gunman itself? Not particularly memorable, unless you have a penchant for old light gun games.

Nintendo must have really liked the concept of Old West duels, though. The Wild Gunman we all remember was actually Nintendo's second go at a Wild Gunman game. The first, also titled Wild Gunman, was an electro-mechanical lightgun arcade game and released in 1974 in Japan (1976 in the US). This absolutely massive cabinet used 16mm film projection to display full-motion-video of an outlaw cowboy, ready to fire at you. When the cowboy's eyes flash, you draw and shoot. If you hit him, he'll fall over and the game will move to the next outlaw. Fail to shoot first and the cowboy wins.

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Shoot the 1970s aesthetic as quickly as possible.

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I'm not particularly well-versed in arcade history, but prior to writing this article, I wasn't aware that any full-motion-video was used in arcade games, pre-1980s. I did a little digging, and it appears that Nintendo was the only developer using film-projection for full-motion-video in the 1970s. If this is truly the case (the Internet is often wrong, don'tcha know), imagine seeing Wild Gunman for the first time in arcades in 1976. Jaws dropped! Minds blown! Cowboy corpses everywhere!

Or... maybe not. If Wild Gunman (1974) was so technically groundbreaking, why doesn't anyone discuss or acknowledge its achievements in retro gaming circles? Perhaps very few have played it. I mean, look at that arcade cabinet. No way that thing cost less than five figures – in today's money certainly, if not 1970s dollars. Its' stateswide reach may have been limited to larger cities. Or perhaps Nintendo's cartoonish "revamping" of the Wild Gunman concept in 1984 became much more popular and widespread than the original? I have no answers. Given the fond memories many have towards crappy FMV games like Night Trap, lack of regard for one of the genre's originators seems more than a little strange.

The Wild Gunman we’re all familiar with was the first light gun game for the Famicom a.k.a. the Japanese NES. As such, the game was packaged, not with the Zapper, but with the Beam Gun, a six-shooter/revolver that came with its own holster. If I had a sweet holster for my Zapper, perhaps I would have played a few more rounds of Wild Gunman as a kid, am I right?! Flimsy holster and plastic casing aside, the Beam Gun looks tremendously realistic. Even in the "it's ok for kids to play with fake guns" 1980s, I'm not sure America would have been ok with that.

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Japan challenges America to a duel.

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With full-motion-video displaying real actors playing outlaw cowboys, the original Wild Gunman strove for pseudo-realism. Wild Gunman (1984) throws all that realistic trash out the window. Here, the five cowboy sprites immaculately crafted cartoon characters.

You could make up backstories for these characters based on their appearances alone. In fact, let's do that.

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People were a lot angrier in the Old West.

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The Nameless Ones. The scraggly one – hunched over, unshaven – hasn't seen a person in weeks, and he's none too happy to see you. He's desperate which makes him more dangerous. The quiet one keeps his hat tucked over most of his face. It's hard to see his pupils, but if you do catch them, they have a soulless glint; like him and the devil worked out an agreement long ago. The nervous one's only fired a gun a couple of times. He's unsure of himself, but he's also squirrely. When shot at, he loses his pants. For him, embarrassment is worse than death. The fat one's draped in a sombrero and pancho. What does he have under there? He's a wild card. You know he's carrying pain, you're just not sure how intense. Then there's the boss. He's tall, well-dressed. He's got money, but how much remains uncertain. He's disinterested in your presence, but you're still a threat so he's come to take you out. Shoot him, and he'll lose his hat, revealing his bald head – a secret he wanted to remain hidden.

Alas, the sprites (and my unofficial biographies) are Wild Gunman's best features. This is one repetitive, monotonous shooting game that only ends when you run out of lives or just grow tired of shooting the same five cowboys. The latter probably won't take long.