The fourth lightgun game in the countdown so far – I promise there is more variety in the top 40!
Easily the most ostentatious and blockbusting arcade lightgun game ever, The Lost World was released in three different species: regular, a small booth (a first) and the amazing Trocadero edition.
Based very loosely (naturally) on the film, The Lost World packs in setpiece after setpiece, from thrashing a Jeep in order to escape an army of compies to an amazing boss fight against a giant crocodile, and the final encounter with the T-Rex is probably more memorable than the film itself. Like in the film, however, you’re not allowed to kill the dinosaurs, so you use a combination of tranquilliser darts, flash grenades and suchlike. If only they were zombie dinosaurs I’m sure the game would have been drastically different!
Although the core game is more or less the same across all versions, the Trocadero cabinet elevates it from enjoyable shooter to an experience to tell your kids about. A huge projection screen stands in front of a rotating seat that twists to give the impression of looking out of a Jeep window, for example. The physical sensation is quite disorienting and certainly makes blasting compies even trickier, but the real joy is the vents that blow damp air when the T-Rex gets too close. Combined with the surround sound and amazing Model 3 graphics, playing The Lost World remains one of my all-time favourite Sega memories.
With its mansion of zombies, House of the Dead is a distinctly un-Sega property at first glance, but that magic is never far from the surface. The twist is in removing the one-shot kill of Virtua Cop in favour of a more trigger-happy approach to blowing limbs off zombies, at once repulsive and satisfying. A steady hand can take the head from a monster’s shoulders, but when they start shambling towards you, mouths sagging open, even the sharpest aim starts to waver.
Brave Firefighter continued Sega’s heritage of pitting players against huge real-life dangers – terrorists, criminal syndicates, dinosaurs – with three levels of incendiary action. A ring on the nozzle let you control the shape of your spray, from wide angle to precise beam, and the level design featured some tremendously scripted events.
My name is James Newton, and this is my website - a collection of my writings about
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