Duck Hunt – 1984

Duck Hunt was the first light gun game I owned, I was one of those lucky kids who got an NES under the tree in 1986, and as awesome as having light guns at home was, that dog still haunts my dreams. So I got an original NES Zapper converted to Blamcon, and let’s face that dog head on.

Duck Hunt has three game modes. In the first mode you get 3 bullets to shoot a one duck. In the second mode you still have 3 bullets, but now you have 2 ducks to shoot. In the last one you’re shooting trap and have to shoot skeets that travel along arcs into the distance .

The first mode starts off easy, but the difficulty ramps up fast. If you miss all three shots your trusty huntin’ dog laughs in your face. I would give anything for a mod that gives you one more bullet to wipe that smile away. Don’t take too long to shoot though, if you wait the duck will fly away and it’s an automatic miss, this time period gets smaller and smaller as the game goes on.There are three kinds of ducks: Blacks tend to fly mostly straight and are the easiest to shoot. Blue ducks are faster and change direction more. Red are the hardest, they change direction so fast it’s like they have the jitters. Direction changes on all the ducks are at whiplash speeds, so leading ducks, especially in later levels is useless. This game is about snap shooting as soon as you have that duck in your sights. Every time you hit a duck on the bottom bar turns red, miss and it stays while, no redos . There’s 10 ducks per round and there’s a blue bar below that shows how many ducks you need to hit to pass the round. Shoot less than the number needed, and it’s game over. There’s no lives or continues here, you start right back at the beginning, old school style. As the levels progress, the ducks speed up, the time you have to shoot each duck, and the number of ducks you need to hit to pass a level increases,and the margin for error shrinks. I find after round 7 I basically stop blinking.

There is a 2 player mode, as it were. Using a controller the second player can control the duck on the screen. In my house this quickly resulted in the console being taken away as it basically turns the second player into a dick, I mean duck. After a few black eyes my brother and I quickly came to the conclusion that one player was the way to play.

In game B it’s a LOT harder, you can’t miss more than once, the ducks are just as wyly as before but now there’s 2 of them, and the time limits are the same. It’s a bit masochistic but it’s a test of skill like no other. Getting past the first few levels is easy, but once it hits level 3 good luck.

In contrast to the chaos of game B the clay shooting game is pretty zen, even the sound effects are relaxing. It’s not easy though, the hit boxes when those skeets get far out are tiny, so you’re best shooting them quick and close if you can. I probably also prefer this mode because there’s no stupid dog laughing in your face every time you miss.

If there’s one real reason I love this game, it’s just how easy it is to pick up and play if you have a few spare minutes, there’s no real progression or story outside the levels getting harder, no nuance, there’s not even any music. You just grab a controller and get blasting, light gun gaming in its purest form. It’s an awesome first light gun game or party filler. Fast turns, intuitive gameplay, and no nuance, just pure fun and frustration, just like classic games should be.