Super Scope review - Super Nintendo

Ever fancied using some “real life” artillery with your Super NES games? Ever felt like scoping out that final enemy boss with a “real” gun and blasting him away by pulling a “real” trigger? Well, all of your dreams have come true with the release of the Nintendo Super Scope - a good-looking piece of kit rather akin to a mini-bazooka.

At the moment there is only only one game available for the Super Scope, and that's the cartridge that comes “free” with the £79.99 package. There are three different mini-games packed into the one game cartridge, all of which are detailed in this MEAN MACHINES review. BLASTRIS, LAZER BLAZER & MOLE PATROL.

What the Mean Machines staff thought

I actually found the Super Scope itself to be quite an impressive piece of hardware which worked surprisingly well. Most Light Phasers I've used in the past were a tad unresponsive and inaccurate, not so the Super Scope. I did find that after prolonged use, I suffered from a very numb shoulder. The game cartridge supplied shows the potential of the Scope very well. Each of the games are well-presented and easy to get into, but I did find that all of them grew quite boring after a short space of time, especially the three-game Lazer Blazer (which is just one game with different graphics for each section). Hopefully, Nintendo will support the Super Scope with some excellent software that makes good use of the decent hardware.

The big 'n' chunky Super Scope is definitely the most impressive light gun yet seen, with a truly accurate sight and a very useful set-up screen so you don't always have to be right in front of the TV when you play. But there are two big problems. Firstly, the game supplied with the Scope is fun for an hour or so, but gets boring and dull very quickly. Secondly, at present there's no other software to use your gun with. I'm always very cautious when looking at add-ons like these, because with everything I've seen before - Sega's 3D glasses and light phaser and Nintendo's ROB robot and light gun - precious little software ever appears for it and what is released is mostly second rate and you end up with literally one or two games that are worth buying for the thing. I'd definitely wait to see what software appears for the Super Scope before spending £50 on it.

Buy Super Scope from Genki

Retrospective comments

From the early days of the NES Zapper and Master System Light Phaser, light guns have always held a strange appeal to me. Duck Hunt on the NES is a true classic - it's simple and effective and most of all, fun. However Nintendo (and Sega) lost the plot in the 16-bit era. They obviously believed that bigger meant better, and so the Super Scope and Menacer were born.

Both were massive guns that proved to be less than fun to use. The Super Scope was basically a bazooka, but it operated exactly the same as the Zapper - there is no good reason for it to be the size it is. By removing the all-important connection to the console, it was forced to run off loads of batteries, which was a huge mistake as it limited the pick-up-and-play appeal of the gun. Nothing was more annoying than firing the game up only to find the batteries had run dry and you would have to hunt around the house to find replacement ones.

The final nail in the coffin was the selection of games bundled with the device - they're average at best. All in all this was a huge disappointment after the excellent of the 8-bit lightguns, and my trust in these devices only returned after Sony released the GunCon and Time Crisis for the Playstation several years later.