Western Gun

Western Gun, also known as Gun Fight in North America, is a 1975 arcade shooter game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released by Taito in Japan and Europe. It was a historically significant game. It was the first on-foot shooter, the first on-foot multi-directional shooter, introduced human combat, was the first open-world video game, and the first action/adventure video game. It was also the first tactical shooter, with elements of real-time strategy/tactics.

The theme of the game involves two Old West cowboys armed with revolvers and squaring off in a duel. Whoever shoots the other cowboy first wins the duel. Unlike in a real-life duel, however, both cowboys get numerous opportunities to duel in order to score points (one point per successful draw). The game was included in GameSpy's "Hall of Fame" in 2002.

Gameplay and story


Western Gun was the first on-foot, multi-directional shooter, that could be played in single-player or two-player. 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. 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. Unlike later games, Western Gun has the main joystick on the right instead of the left. 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. The player characters used in the game represented avatars for the players, and would yell "Got me!" when one of them is shot.

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 guns have limited ammunition, with each player given six bullets; a round ends if both players run out of ammo. 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 original Western Gun was the first open-world video game, and the first action-adventure game. The two cowboy gunslingers had free-roaming movement across a single-screen open-world environment, littered with cacti and mountains while attempting to shoot each other. Bullets ricochet off objects, allowing them to be used as a cover system. This gave the game an element of real-time strategy, or real-time tactics, making it the first tactical shooter.

Development and technology
Taito employee Tomohiro Nishikado designed Western Gun as a character-based game with fragments of a story. While it lacked the cutscenes 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 video game arcade cabinet which matched the in-game graphics featuring cacti, covered wagons, rocks, and human characters. 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. In addition, in contrast to previous arcade video games such as Pong that produced blip sounds, Gun Fight featured the use of a one-channel amplifier to provide mono gunshot sounds.

Tomohiro Nishikado's original Western Gun design was based on discrete logic, like most arcade video games of the time.

Gun Fight
It had an altered North American version, Gun Fight, released by Midway Games in 1975. Gun Fight was a success in the arcades.

Gun Fight was a major video game hit for its time, selling more than 8,000 cabinets in the US. Following a flood of Pong clones, Gun Fight helped revitalize a declining arcade video game industry that was flooded with Pong clones. Its success also opened the way for Japanese video games in the North American market. It was also the first video game to use a microprocessor. It was soon ported to the Bally Astrocade video game console as a built-in game in 1977 as well as several home computer platforms, and has been referred to as "the Halo of its day."

Changes
The North American version Gun Fight introduced a microprocessor, allowing more detailed larger sprite graphics and smoother animation, but limited the gameplay. 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. Gun Fight also reduced the scale of the environment, with mountains no longer being present.

Nishikado believed that his original version Western Gun was more fun, but was impressed with the improved graphics and smoother animation of Midway's version Gun Fight. This led him to design microprocessors into his subsequent games, including the blockbuster 1978 shoot 'em up hit Space Invaders.

Series

 * Western Gun (1975)
 * Gun Fight (1975)
 * Gunman (1977)
 * Boot Hill (1977)
 * Sheriff (1979)
 * Western Gun Part II (1979)

Popular culture
The game's opening chiptune is sampled by the hit 1978 song "Computer Game" by Yellow Magic Orchestra.