“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

In our horribly named, but entirely delightful, weekly series, we jump into the official WingDamage Delorean and go back… back in time to examine some of the games of yesteryear. So let’s see if we can get this baby up to 88 miles per hour and go back to 1985 and look at Duck Hunt for the NES.

The Nintendo Entertainment System came packed with the raddest looking light gun in the history of video games. In the 80′s, the NES zapper looked like the future. When you were done pretending to shoot your friends with it, you could use it to play what I still consider to be one of the best light gun game ever made.

Light gun games were nothing new, even way back in 1985. Check out the Seeburg Ray-O-Lite that was built way back in 1936. Shooting ducks with a light was already about 50 years old when Nintendo threw their hat into the duck shooting ring. The fancy pants “Nintendo Entertainment System” just did it way better.

The premise of Duck Hunt is simple; You and your trusty canine companion are out to shoot some ducks. As the ducks take flight you have limited time and ammunition to shoot them before they fly off the screen. The ducks do their best to juke you out, dodging up and down and left and right.

As you progress the ducks get faster and faster, so that you must constantly adjust your technique to match their increasing speed. To get to the later levels you have to shoot like Robocop amped up on Red Bull.

There is not really a story to the game at all. You can invent one if you like, but Duck Hunt is too busy shooting ducks to care.

Even with all kinds of fancy upgrades to computer processing and the razzle and dazzle that those upgrades entail, there is still not a better light gun game. Time Crisis? Point Blank? They wish they had the staying power and replayability of Duck Hunt.

Why did I pick this game?

I feel like Duck Hunt is an oft forgotten classic. Everyone that plays it loves it. Whenever anyone mentions it, people profess to loving it, and yet it is rarely mentioned in discussions about the greatest game of all time. Gamers are always clamoring for a new Kid Icarus (which is way harder and not nearly as good as you remember). Yet no one ever seems to cry out for a new Duck Hunt which is universally loved (like fat Oprah.)

I picked Duck Hunt because I played the holy bejesus out of this one through the years. I can shoot ducks like I am some kind of cyborg ninja sniper from the future. Digital ducks quack in fear whenever they mention my name.

How does it hold up with time?

Duck Hunt holds up like a 1935 Château d’Yquem. Grab 2 televisions, hook up Duck Hunt on one and anything else on the other. Which one would people go to? I don’t care how flashy or cool you think your game is, people will choose Duck Hunt. Maybe its the zapper. Maybe it’s the dog. The game has an undeniable appeal.

While the graphics are simplistic and you can totally cheat by standing 6 inches from the television screen and blast ducks like, ducks in a barrel, all of that just adds to Duck Hunt’s charm. Duck Hunt is still the best. There is something simple and primal about you, a gun, your dog, and some ducks. I still try to shoot that dog whenever he laughs at one of my few misses.

You want proof people need more Duck Hunt: People bought this because they loved Duck Hunt so much. I mean seriously click on it. Is that not incontrovertible proof that people want to massacre some ducks?

This article might have started as a simple review but now it has transformed into something more. A cry. A plea. A hopeful prayer. Please someone somewhere make my dreams come true. Bring us all another Duck Hunt.

Tags: duck hunt, Friday Old Games, Kid Icarus, lightgun, NES, Point Blank, Seeburg Ray-O-Lite, Time Crisis, zapper

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 9:54 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.