![]() Taito licensed its game Western Gun to Midway for release in North America, the second such license after the 1974 vertical-scrolling driving/racing game Speed Race, also designed by Tomohiro Nishikado. In contrast to earlier games which used miniature shapes to represent abstract blocks or spaceships, Western Gun featured cartoon-like human characters, influenced by Japanese manga / anime. While it lacked the cut-scenes or fleshed-out character designs of later games due to technological limitations, the game presented early cinematic elements, through artwork of cowboys in the Wild West on the arcade cabinet which matched the in-game graphics featuring cacti, covered wagons, rocks, and human characters. ![]() Taito employee Tomohiro Nishikado designed Western Gun as a character-based game with fragments of story. Gun Fight also reduced the scale of the environment, with mountains no longer being present. In Gun Fight, each player's movement was limited to their own side of the screen, whereas the original Japanese Western Gun had free-roaming movement across anywhere on the screen. The North American version Gun Fight introduced a microprocessor, allowing more detailed larger sprite graphics and smoother animation, but limited the gameplay. However, Western Gun had more primitive sprite graphics and animation, and used discrete-logic hardware (lacking a microprocessor). The two cowboy gunslingers had free-roaming movement across a single-screen open-world environment, littered with cacti and mountains that could be used as cover, while attempting to shoot each other. The original Western Gun was the first open-world video game, the first action-adventure video game, and the first real-time tactical cover shooter. There are differences between Western Gun and Gun Fight: ![]() Western Gun was Taito's original Japanese version, also released in Europe, while Gun Fight was Midway's North American adaptation. Gun Fight Gun Fight improved the graphics, but was no longer an open-world action-adventure. Gunshots can also ricochet off the top or bottom edges of the playfield, allowing for indirect hits to be used as a possible strategy. The guns have limited ammunition, with each player given six bullets a round ends if both players run out of ammo. Other features of the game included obstacles between the characters, such as a cactus, and in later levels, pine trees and moving wagons these objects serve to provide cover for the players and can be destructible. The player characters used in the game represented avatars for the players, and would yell "Got me!" when one of them is shot. It was also the first known video game to feature game characters and fragments of story through its visual presentation, marking the beginning of cinematic elements in video games. Unlike later games, Western Gun has the main joystick on the right instead of the left. ![]() The game also introduced dual-stick controls, using two distinct joystick controls per player, with one eight-way joystick for moving the computerized cowboy around on the screen and the other for changing the shooting direction. It also introduced video game violence, being the first video game to depict human-to-human combat, and the first to depict a gun on screen. Western Gun was an early, on-foot, multi-directional shooter, that could be played in single-player or two-player. Gun Fight's success laid the foundations for the shooter genre. In 1976, it was the third highest-grossing game in the region, just behind Speed Race / Wheels, another previous Taito game licensed by Midway. The game was a hit in North America, where it sold more than 8,000 units. The game was included in GameSpy's "Hall of Fame" in 2002. Unlike in a real-life duel, however, both cowboys get numerous opportunities to duel in order to score points (one point per successful draw). Whoever shoots the other cowboy first wins the duel. The theme of the game involves two Wild West cowboys armed with revolvers and squaring off in a duel. It was ported from Taito's original TTL (transistor-transistor logic) configuration to the Intel 8080 by Nutting Associates. The US release of Gun Fight was also the first microprocessor-powered video game. In gameplay terms, it was the first game to depict human-to-human combat, the first on-foot shooter, the first open-world video game, and the first action-adventure game. Its success paved the way for Japanese video games in the North American market. Gun Fight was the third hit Taito game licensed by Midway in North America (after Basketball and Speed Race / Wheels). It was a historically significant game, and a success in the arcades. Overview Western Gun was the first on-foot shooter and the first open-world action-adventure.
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