Duck
Hunt.
It’s one of those games you forget about until you see it mentioned somewhere …
like here. It’s a classic, understated game, and I was a master of it.
The version I fondly remember is not the capable but
lacking NES one. It’s the arcade model, the one that prepped a whole generation
of people for the upcoming FPS genre. Instead of zombies or Nazis, though, you
were shooting ducks (and the occasional dog). Again, a simple game but highly
addictive.
At the time I discovered this game I was working at
a campground resort called Timothy Lake. In its “game room” (really an arcade)
stood the intriguing game with its light gun. At first I avoided playing it
because I was a Xevious and Centipede fan, and we had both.
Curiosity got the best of me, though, and eventually I parted with my quarter.
It was the first of many. The game was not only addictive, it was also
cathartic. After a long day of renting out miniature golf clubs, nothing blew
off steam like shooting pixelated ducks out of the sky. Nothing.
My addiction to this game grew so deep that I
resorted to some unseemly actions to secure playing it. If we were busy at the
campground, I knew that I would have to wait an hour or more after quitting
time just to get a chance to play. That wasn’t flying with me, so about a half
hour before I would time out I would make an “Out of Order” sign, post it on
the machine, and then shove a bit of toilet paper into the barrel of the light
gun just to complete the picture.
Yeah, it was that bad.
Sadly, I haven’t played this game in decades, and I
wonder if it would stand the test of time. I somehow doubt it, but the memory
lives on.
