Light Gun

A light gun is a peripheral control device for video games used for targeting and shooting objects on the screen. The first light guns appeared in the 1930s, and soon after they began to appear in arcade shooting games, such as the Seeburg Ray-O-Lite in 1936. These early light gun games used small targets onto which a light-sensing tube was mounted; the player fired a gun that emitted a beam of light, scoring a hit if the beam struck the target. Modern screen-based light guns work on the opposite principle; the on-screen target emits light rather than the gun, and the sensor is built into the gun itself.

Light guns may be used in a range of different games, most commonly shooting gallery games (for example, Shooting Range for the Nintendo Entertainment System) and rail shooters (where the player's movement is dictated by the game) such as Time Crisis and Die Hard 2: Die Harder.

The first home console light gun was released on the Magnavox Odyssey, whilst the most popular example of the light gun was probably the Zapper Gun for Nintendo Entertainment System. Other consoles also released light guns, such as the Light Phaser for the Sega Master System, Super Scope for Super Nintendo, Menacer for Sega MegaDrive and the Namco GunCon and GunCon 2 for the Sony PlayStation and Playstation 2.