The original version of Wild Gunman is one of Nintendo's electro-mechanical arcade games created by Gunpei Yokoi and released in 1974. It consists of a light gun connected to a 16 mm projection screen. Full-motion video footage of an American Wild West gunslinger is projected onto the screen. When this enemy character's eyes flash, the player draws and fires the gun. If the player is fast enough, the projection changes to that of the shot gunman falling down; otherwise it shows the gunman drawing and firing his gun. A victorious player faces off against several more gunslinger opponents. This version of Wild Gunman was released in North America by Sega in 1976. The second version has a plastic gunman figure mounted on top of a plastic battery box called Custom Gunman, which later became one of the microgames in the Game Boy Advance title, .
Video game versions
Nintendo converted the electro-mechanical concept into a video game, replacing photographic images with cartoon-style sprites. In 1984 in Japan, the Famicom version was released for use with the Zapper gun peripheral. This was also available packaged with a plastic, western-style revolver accessory that can be used instead of the Zapper. In 1985 in the United States, it was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System. In the NES version, the player waits for the opponent's eyes to flash before shooting. It features a shooting gallery where opponents are to be shot from the windows of a saloon. A piece of Frédéric Chopin's "Funeral march" indicates the player's defeat. This version was also published on the PlayChoice-10arcade system.
Experimental filmmaker Craig Baldwin's 1978 short Wild Gunman features footage from the original 1974 arcade game which was re-edited, sped up, and slowed down to surreal effect. The NES game notoriously appears as an arcade machine in a scene in Back to the FuturePart II. October 21, 2015 was Back to the Future Day, on which Nintendo re-released the game on the Wii U Virtual Console, adapted to use the Wii remote as an emulated light gun, in honor of its appearance in the film. The enemy cowboys from Wild Gunman also appear as drop targets in Zen Studios' digital pinball adaptation of the Back to the Future trilogy, an add-on for the 2017 game Pinball FX 3. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, there is a collectible sticker for the Wild Gunman character; in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the Duck Hunt character can summon any of gunmen as one of their attacks. The characters' Final Smash move causes opponents to get caught in the middle of a shootout between the gunmen and the enemy characters from Hogan's Alley.
