Any review of every dreamcast Lightgun?

[Gocha]

Hi everyone, is there a place where I can read a little about which dreamcast lightgun is the best? I want to but a couple mostly to play house of the dead 2.

There has been posts in the past on other forums, but I haven't heard of anyone sitting down with every version and trying them out. If any of you have experience using different lightguns I would appreciate the feedback too.

My current best options are:
1.- Buying 2 original japanese guns and just playing on the JP version of The house of the dead, this seems like the best and easiest option, but I kind of want to play with my original version of the house of the dead even when it doesn't make any difference.
2.- Buying a pair of Madcatz guns considering these are the licensed guns we got in america. The good thing about this is playing the original house of the dead 2 on my american dreamcast, but this ones are getting a little pricey and also I don't know how good they are, I've read different opinions about them.
3.- Buying a pair of StarFire LightBlaster (interact), this seems to be good, but I've seen a lot of pictures that show guns with missing buttons on the side, which makes me think that are kind of fragile.

what about the others? do you think is worth it to buy a chinese copy? a pelican gun? some other?


PS: if you have lightguns for sale send me a message hehe

[Roareye]

I can only speak for the official European light guns (I have 5 of them), and they're VERY good and long-lasting. Definitely would recommend them. I believe they're identical to the Japanese official guns too, so you may find them cheaper importing from Europe but I don't know. If you had a PAL copy of House of the Dead 2 or Confidential Mission you'd also be able to use the PAL light guns. Light gun usage was only blocked in America.

Essentially the official light guns are region free and will work on any console. It's actually the game code for the US versions of House of the Dead 2 and Confidential Mission that actively block support for the guns.

Here are your three choices;

1 - Someone on this forum has a version of the US game modded to accept official light guns, so that may solve your problem if you feel you must stick to the US edition.

2 - Alternatively if you want the games in English but not use a modded disc, then import the PAL games.

3 - If you really don't care about language then get the Japanese ones if they're cheaper. Otherwise go for PAL. All PAL light gun games are 60hz compatible, so there should be no issue using them on a US CRT, and definitely no issue using them via VGA/HDMI.

[megavolt85]

I am for the option of using the original light guns
3rd party light guns tend to crap when connected via VGA
don't worry about running NTSC-U games with NTCS-J lightgun, I added patched versions of games to dubcity collection, now NTSC-U games don't have region check

[hawkzer0]

I have all three of those models.
The official Sega gun has the best build quality by far, but after a while the trigger can start to make your finger feel sore. Also, none of the cool features like auto fire/reload that the other two have.

The mad catz is probably the next best one (out of the three I have) I like the trigger compared to the official gun and the lights when you pull the trigger are a nice touch. Not as good of build quality as the Sega branded one either.

The interact one that I have seems to not shoot the straightest, but that's probably just an issue with my gun. I think this one has the worst build quality out of the three. It also has that extra trigger that functions as quick reloading.

[mistamontiel]

I despise the StarFire Interact w/e the fucker is! Much imprecise and mush and much oversized

MadCatz a pea shooter but far far superior

[sonik]

I am for the option of using the original light guns
3rd party light guns tend to crap when connected via VGA
don't worry about running NTSC-U games with NTCS-J lightgun, I added patched versions of games to dubcity collection, now NTSC-U games don't have region check

I always like to use original hardware. But for DC my 3rd party gun works way better than my original one (on tv or vga).

One thing that bugs me is that I cant calibrate in Confidential Mission with any of the guns I tested.

[megavolt85]

I can't speak for all third-party light guns, but you definitely shouldn't take this one, it doesn't hit the target when connected via VGA