G’AIM’E Plug & Play Time Crisis Light Gun System Review By Britt "A new light gun bundle for Modern TVs!" 🔫 @MyGAIME

It’s always a pleasure when tech that has fallen by the wayside gets a new lease of life, and light gun games certainly fall into that category.

A couple of years ago, I covered the fantastic Sinden light Gun, but it did require some setup and also relied on the owner’s library of games, as opposed to coming pre-packaged with anything.

The G’AIM’E light gun ‘aims’ to remedy this, and after a successful Kickstarter raised over 800k, they now have various packages available, timed in with celebrating thirty years of that classic arcade light gun shooter, Time Crisis.

Before we get into the product itself, below are the available releases, at present:

Time Crisis – Basic, includes:

• G’AIM’E Light gun (4m cable)
• Mini-console with Time Crisis built-in
• Power & HDMI cables
• Quick start guide

Time Crisis+ Premium, includes:

• G’AIM’E light gun (4m cable)
• Mini-console with Time Crisis, Point Blank, Steel Gunner 1 & 2  built-in
• Pedal (4m cable)
• Limited Edition pin badge
• Power & HDMI cables
• Quick start guide

Time Crisis+ Ultimate

• 2x G’AIM’E light guns (4m cable)
• Mini-console with Time Crisis, Point Blank, Steel Gunner 1 & 2  built-in
• Pedal (4m cable)
• Limited Edition pin badge
• Limited edition diorama stand
• Type-C Multi-region power adapter
• Power & HDMI cables
• Quick start guide

As well as:

• G’AIM’E Gun (Arcade Blue) (an additional or replacement gun)
• G’AIM’E Pedal (for Time Crisis only)

We at GF received the Time Crisis+ Ultimate bundle, and it was very well-packaged and looks absolutely fantastic, with the light guns and pedal themselves feeling robust, with lengthy, practical cables,  and the pin badge and diorama a great addition to any collector’s shelves. Time Crisis is a much-loved franchise, and the design of the packaging and focus on this as the main attraction here will surely please longtime fans of the series. The quick start guide is easy to follow and has quite a strong focus on calibration – which really is vital. The light gun uses AI technology and requires the  sensor in the barrel to see all of the screen that you are using at once in order to be used correctly. For instance, my main screen is 55-inch, so I need to be between 3/3.5metres away from my screen for optimum accuracy. I’m lucky enough to have a large-sized living room, so this was no issue – although I’ll circle back to the accuracy later on in this article – but if you have a smaller screen, you can be closer if required. Just to be aware if you have a 100+ inch screen in a narrow room!

The setup and selection of each of the games after initially calibrating both guns was a breeze, and we were soon into playing the games themselves, and they play and sound absolutely as you remember, it was a glorious experience – again, we were setup and gaming in minutes. The only thing I would mention at this point is that the mini-console is quite light with at least four cables protruding (power, HDMI, 2 light guns) so be careful if you have it up high, as this isn’t a wireless setup and if a pet or child catches or pulls the cable, there’s a danger that the console will move due to its lightness.

My experience thus far was extremely positive, the product looked and felt great, there was a clear love and respect for Time Crisis that played perfectly, the support I received from the contact at Tassei Denki was helpful and informative, and the rumble recoil as well as all peripherals worked great, but there was something that affected my time with the system and that was the accuracy.

Upon playing, I thought that I’d shifted my position since initially calibrating and promptly quit out and calibrated again to find that – again – the aiming just felt a tad iffy. I had similar issues with Point Blank (most notably with the one-shot sections, naturally) and so tried out Steel Gunner, which has a visible crosshair on screen at all times and that was when it was clear that the accuracy isn’t as swift or smooth as I feel it needs to be for this to be a full-throated recommendation of the product, as you can visibly see that the crosshair is trembling and not fully able to keep up with sections in these games that require fast movements. I spent some time moving closer/further from the screen and it never seemed to settle. I popped online and did a little research and this is not an issue that plagued me alone, so I send an email over to the PR contact and they advised that there was a firmware update currently being tested both internally and externally, but it wasn’t yet available. Whilst I understand that pinpoint accuracy  won’t be a deal breaker for everyone, it did sting a little as it’s such a fundamental aspect of these games.

SUMMARY

The G’AIM’E light gun system is an accessible and impressive piece of kit that looks and feels great whilst having tasty versions of the games ready to play straight out of the box, it would have been cool to see perhaps all three of the original series of Point Blank included (I believe they all used the same engine) and perhaps a few other titles to bulk up the library, but the slightly wobbly accuracy is a bugbear, and I’m excited for that firmware update to be released, as this will then make this an absolute gem for fans of Time Crisis and light gun games in general.

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