One of my most enjoyable experiences on the PAX East showfloor towards the end of last week came from the incredibly cool G’AIM’E. Together with my pal Azario Lopez over at Noisy Pixel, I got to experience a two-player light gun game in a way that felt as natural as the arcade, which is something I didn’t even know we were capable of yet. As someone who would play various House of the Dead and Time Crisis games nonstop at local theater arcades growing up, I’ve been aching to be able to replicate that feeling at home, and it seems like G’AIM’E is the thing that’ll finally be able to achieve that.
The G’AIM’E itself is composed of a plastic light gun, a mini-console, and an optional foot pedal. A pretty great variety of games comes included depending on the version you use, with the most basic version only having Time Crisis and the other two models currently having Point Blank, Steel Gunner, and Steel Gunner 2. The version we played was one of the more advanced ones, as we teamed up in a very competitive manner to tackle Steel Gunner.
Even setting up G’AIM’E is gamified to be pleasant.
Before playing, we were each prompted to calibrate the light guns by aiming at squares on the screen and shooting them a number of times. I found it incredibly straightforward and quick to do, and it made the experience of using the gun in the game feel pretty much perfect. According to the folks we talked to and the official website, a combination of a high-res camera in the gun barrel and AI technology makes the G’AIM’E capable of tracking your movements, essentially making it perfect at knowing where you’re aiming.
And in my experience, I found this process to make for remarkable accuracy, especially given the inconsistent lighting and spacing the system had to work with in the convention center. I never thought my shots were missing their mark, and the smoothness of pointing and shooting at different sections of the screen genuinely felt 1:1 with the last time I was in an arcade. Within the last couple of months, I went to an arcade bar to play Time Crisis 2, and it felt pretty much identical in terms of accuracy, aside from the bar part.
The design of the G’AIM’E gun itself is excellent, looking exactly the way I remember so many similar arcade guns looking. It’s a bright and almost neon blue, filled with flashy orange highlights that truly pop. The buttons are all easily accessible, so everything from popping in a virtual credit to hitting “A” to use a grenade feels effortless. Even just holding it feels exactly as I remember, with the weight light enough to hold up without feeling floaty or anything.
I really can’t describe how excited the G’AIM’E has me. If it can keep securing new titles like further Time Crisis games, House of the Dead, and even Area 51, I think it could easily become a household staple for arcade enthusiasts – especially those who want to play with their friends in the most accurate way possible. You can check out the official G’AIM’E website for yourself to get more details or nab one for yourself, and if you go as hard on light gun games as I do, I think you’ll have a real blast.
