Wild Gunman (NES) guide

Wild Gunman (NES) guide
by KeeperBvK aka Burkhart von Klitzing
Contact: [email protected]

Dedication: I dedicate this work to my beloved dad who passed away on the
07/13/2005.
I always loved you and I always will. Thank you so much for the
time we had.

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0.1 Legal Stuff
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This Guide may not be posted on any other website other than
www.gamefaqs.com
www.gamerhelp.com
www.honestgamers.com
without my permission and it may not be used commercially in any possible way.
If you want to post it on another site please contact me via E-Mail or via
the Message Board.
Do not claim this guide or any part of it to be your creation.
If you find any mistakes (even regarding the language as I'm German) please
let me know.
Copyright 2007 Burkhart von Klitzing

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0.2 Version History
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1.0: Finished on 04/04/2006, 12 KB large
Seems complete to me.

1.01: Finished on 05/13/2006, 12 KB large
Added gamerhelp.com.

1.02: Finished on 03/12/2007, 12 KB large
Added www.honestgamers.com

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0.3 Contents
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| Latest Update | Search Key |
------------------------|---------------|------------|
0.1 Legal Stuff | 1.02 | |
0.2 Version History | 1.02 | |
0.3 Contents | 1.02 | |
------------------------|---------------|------------|
1. What is Wild Gunman? | 1.0 | AAA |
2. Controls | 1.0 | BBB |
3. Strategies | 1.0 | CCC |
4. Scoring | 1.0 | DDD |
5. FAQ | 1.0 | EEE |
------------------------|---------------|------------|
6. Closing Comments | 1.0 | FFF |
7. Experimental | 1.0 | GGG |
------------------------|---------------|------------|

To quickly reach a certain section in this guide, press Ctrl + F and search
for the specific Search Key.

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1. What is Wild Gunman? AAA
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Back in the days of the NES, Nintendo released the last light gun on any
Nintendo system to be supplied with a decent amount of games. Some of them,
though, were pretty simple and Wild Gunman definitely fits this category. You
are a gunman in the Wild West and your goal is to take down as many bad guys
as possible in some more or less quick gun fights that are over after a
single hit.

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2. Controls BBB
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___________
Controller:|

Select Button: Highlight another option on the title screen.

Start Button: Choose a game mode.
Pause and resume the game.
_______
Zapper:|

Shooting off-screen: Highlight another option on the title screen.

Shooting on-screen: Shooting bad guys, of course. ;)

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3. Strategies CCC
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_______
Game A:|

The title screen already says it: There's one outlaw to fight. The enemy
walks in either from the right or from the left, stops at the centre of the
screen and draws his gun after a random amount of time. Once he does you are
allowed to shoot him. Triggering your gun before that, results in a foul and
in the loss of a life. Waiting to long to shoot him, allows for the bad guy
to hit you, which also takes one life from you. After three lives lost, it's
game over. After defeating an enemy another one will follow and there is no
way of ending this game mode except for dying.
Every target has a random reaction time after which you lose in case you
don't attack, but knowing how much time you have doesn't help a bit, so
simply ignore the information on the screen. Another random number is the
bounty for an enemy. While the average bounty rises after a few stages and
the average reaction time becomes harder to deal with, later on it stays
pretty much the same. An odd thing about these figures is that they really
don't correlate: I've seen e.g. an enemy with $5,800 and a reaction time of
0.6 seconds, as well as one with $6,000 reward and 0.5 seconds and one with
$5,000 and 0.9 seconds.
The lowest and the highest time I know of are 0.4 and 1.5 seconds.
If you want to be good at this game mode, first of all ignore the time you
have left and the outer appearance your adversary: They look different, but
they all behave the same. Now look at the counter showing how much time
you've needed to defeat an enemy. It stays at 0.00 seconds until you are
allowed to attack. The opposite gunman will shout "fire" and the counter
suddenly starts to change, which both should very well be sufficient for you
to quickly realize you may shoot. Looking at the enemy is harder to pull off,
as not every move he makes means the duel has started.
Another extremely useful thing to remember is that the game doesn't require
you to aim at the enemy but simply somewhere on-screen, so you see there's
really no need to watch the bad guys.
_______
Game B:|

This is pretty similar to Game A, yet it has a few twists. This time two
gunmen enter the screen, each one with a certain time he needs to hit you.
Usually both enemies scream fire and become vulnerable at the same time, so
you can take them down shortly after one another. Sometimes, though, one of
them won't pull out their gun at all, requiring you to only hit the other one.
Remember that the one who didn't aim at you won't do at all. Simply sit back
and wait for the stage to end.
In game B you still do not need to aim precisely. Hitting either the left or
the right half of the screen will take care of the outlaw in the
corresponding corner.
The correlation between reward and time is just as awkward as it is in Game A.
The lowest and the highest time I know of are 0.4 and 1.6 seconds.
Since the screaming sample doesn't help you in this mode (you can't hear
whether both gunmen are about to attack or not), I propose not to look at the
timer all the time. Instead aim your gun at the centre of the screen and
watch for the speech bubbles showing you when to shoot. Now simply either
dispose both enemies or aim a bit to the side to eliminate the hostile bad
guy. In case one enemy has a way lower timer than the other one, you should
aim at the more dangerous guy instead of aiming at the centre.
_______
Game C:|

In Game C (or also called Gang) you see a house with four windows and a door.
Per wave you will have to face ten outlaws showing up in any of these five
locations and you have to shoot them as quickly as possible. Unlike Game A
and B, you don't get to see a timer or anything else showing you how much
time you have, but on the other hand you can open fire as soon as you see an
enemy.
Fortunately, there will never be more than two bad guys on the screen at the
same time and unlike other light gun shooters there are no civilians or
anything else you aren't allowed to hit.
Another bad thing, though, is that you have limited ammo (fifteen bullets per
wave) so make sure your aiming is on the spot.
Like in the other game modes you do not have to aim at an enemy directly, but
just close to it. Given that there are five possible hitboxes here, you have
to aim a bit better than in Game A and B, though. Still nothing to really
worry about: It isn't too hard to survive for a long time here as well.
I recommend aiming at the centre of the screen to quickly get any place into
your crosshair. Always take down the outlaws in the order in which they enter
the screen as the first one to appear always strikes first.

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4. Scoring DDD
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------------
Game A and B|
------------
_______
Bounty:|

Every enemy has a set reward shown either in the bottom left or bottom right
corner. Defeating him will earn you that amount of money (or points, just how
you look at it).
This reward ranges from 2,800 to 6,800 in Game A and 3,800 to 8,500 in Game B.
If you defeat an outlaw in Game B and make a mistake against the other one,
you don't get any reward whatsoever.
______
Bonus:|

Shooting the bad guys in less time rewards you with more points. This neat
bonus is calculated extremely simply: Change the last digit of the amount of
time you needed to a zero. Then subtract this time from the maximum time you
had to defeat your current adversary. Multiply the result with 10,000: This
is your bonus.
This calculation might seem a bit complicated when explained by me, but it
really isn't. I'll just give you an example to make it clear.
An enemy would shoot you after 0.8 seconds. You hit him after 0.27 seconds.
So it's 0.27 --> 0.20, 0.8 - 0.2 = 0.6, 0.6 x 10,000 = 6,000 points.
In Game B you get two bonuses per duel, one for every enemy, but like the
bounty, the bonus for one enemy is completely wasted when messing up with the
other bad guy.

------
Game C|
------
_______
Bounty:|

Like in Game A and B you receive a reward for every enemy that has been
eliminated.
Since there is no way of defeating an enemy AND knowing how long it takes for
him to hit you I can't tell you if slow gunmen grant you less points than
faster ones or if it is just randomly chosen.
What I can tell you is that the lowest possible score is 1,000 and the
highest score is 5,000.

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5. FAQ EEE
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Q: Why no highscore section?
A: Because the game's too easy. You can play on forever which renders a
highscore competition pretty much useless.

Q: Is there a two-player mode?
A: No.

Q: Is Clint Eastwood in this game?
A: Err, no.

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6. Closing Comments FFF
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Wild Gunman is simplistic, yes...and it doesn't really offer anything
spectacular (except for the "fire" sample, maybe), but it's a nice little
game and even with other interesting wild west theme games out by now, like
Red Dead Revolver or Dead Man's Hand, this is the only game I can think of
that lets you be part of a classic gunfight duel we've all seen in lots and
lots of movies. On the other hand Wild Gunman is a bit on the expensive side
(at least here in Germany), so you probably would only want to buy this as an
addition to your NES or Zapper collection.

I'd appreciate any comments, questions, critics or whatsoever, so please mail
me at [email protected] if you have anything to tell me (even misspellings and
stuff).

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7. Experimental GGG
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In some other guides I've seen the author implement the following and I
thought "Why not give it a try for your own guides?":

If you really like this guide and you think it helped you or entertained you
a bit or whatsoever and you feel like rewarding me not only by writing a nice
e-mail, feel free to send some money to my paypal account at:

[email protected]

Of course I don't want to make somebody send me money who doesn't really want
to (even if I could, I wouldn't ;) ), but (also of course) I'd appreciate any
contribution.

Thank you very much for reading this guide and hopefully some more of my
stuff on gamefaqs.