A light-gun accessory allows you to play target practice with your PlayStation 2.
The Sony PlayStation 2 allows a wide variety of game-play styles. The machine has games catering to every gamer from the arcade racing enthusiast to the hardcore tactician. One genre of games available only to those who choose to purchase the appropriate accessories for the console is the light-gun game. These games allow players to enjoy fast-paced target-practice style shooting that utilize their own aiming skills, instead of relying on the abilities of an in-game character.
Vampire Night
One of the first light-gun games available for PlayStation 2, "Vampire Night" was developed by Sega and bears a strong resemblance to its "House of the Dead" games. Ported to PlayStation 2 by Namco, the biggest developer of light-gun games for the original PlayStation, the game incorporates fast-paced story-driven game play in a Gothic-styled conflict between human vampire hunters and demonic vampires. Players adventure through a succession of levels that will be familiar territory to fans of the vampire genre in film and literature, in the hunt for a cabal of vampires led by a Dracula-like vampire knight.
Time Crisis 3
The always-successful "Time Crisis" series received its PlayStation 2 outing in 2003 with "Time Crisis 3," which sent players on a frantic chase to apprehend a criminal mastermind bent on global warfare. The game's mechanic of hiding and shooting, which gives players the option to take cover and reload or get a breather at the expense of a constantly ticking time limit, is a standard of light-gun games and even crossed over into titles like "Halo" and "Red Faction."
Dino Stalker
Capcom's "Dino Stalker" continues the saga begun in the company's PlayStation title, "Dino Crisis." A cross between "Resident Evil" and "Jurassic Park," these games transplant the zombie-hunting action of "Resident Evil" to a sci-fi world in which scientific meddling has unleashed fearsome dinosaurs. Players familiar with "Dino Crisis 2" will feel at home in "Dino Stalker," as the game provides a first-person revisiting of the "Dino Crisis 2" narrative; but newcomers will quickly become acclimatized to the game's mixture of first-person movement and light-gun shooting. With an emphasis on fast, arcade-style combat, "Dino Stalker" doesn't take much effort to get into, but the game's later levels pack a steep difficulty curve.
Starsky and Hutch
Light-gun support is optional for "Starsky and Hutch." Though released to coincide with the Hollywood movie, the 2003 title's focus is reliving the driving and shooting action of the cult 1970s television series. The game is best enjoyed in two-player mode: while one player controls the titular characters' tricked-out urban roadster, the other uses the light gun to take out on-road targets and assist in high-speed gun battles. This innovative use of the light gun is a one-of-a-kind feature for the PlayStation 2.
Tags: Dino Stalker, Dino Crisis, light-gun games, Time Crisis, games available, Resident Evil
