Super Scope

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The Super Scope, or Nintendo Scope in Europe, is the official Super NES light gun. It is shaped like a bazooka and is the successor of the vastly popular^{[verification needed]} NES Zapper. The Super Scope was released in the European and US markets, with a limited release in Japan due to a lack of consumer demand. It is a wireless gun, like the Sega Menacer, and uses an infrared receiver which plugs into the console. It has three buttons and a power switch and is powered by six AA batteries.

The Super Scope does not work with NES games in conjunction with a SNES-to-NES converter such as a Super 8.

1 Physical description
2 Detecting a target hit
3 Legacy
4 Appearances within video games
5 Trivia
6 Games
7 Cameos and other appearances
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Physical description

The gun body is a bazooka-shaped device, about just under 2 ½ feet long. Located about midway on top of the barrel are two buttons and a switch. The first is the purple "fire" button, which is used to fire at the enemies onscreen, and a pink "pause" button, which maps to the "Start" button on the SNES controller. The switch is used to turn the Super Scope on and off, and to switch between regular or turbo mode. In the middle, on both the left and right hand side, are two clips on which you slide the sight. On the far end of the gun, on the bottom, is a six inch grip. On the grip is another, small button labeled "Cursor", which moves the cursor in some games that use it, similar to the "Select" button.

On the end is the lens, slightly larger than the size of a quarter, which picks up the light from a TV, and right above that is the infrared transmitter. The sight mount is shaped like a wide, very shallow "U", about five inches long. One end, which faces toward the shoulder mount end, has a round open cylinder holder, where the eyepiece goes. The other end has a short, narrow tube, which forms the sight when one looks through the eyepiece that is in-line across from it. The end of the eyepiece is very simple: it is a cylinder with the diameter of a quarter, with a removable rubber piece through which the shooter looks. If all is set up right, the shooter will see a small bit of the screen right through the sight. The sensor is a small box, 2 ½" by 2 ½" by 1", with a standard SNES controller cord attached. On the front is an oval-shaped black area, receding back from the two sides to a red sensor about the size of a dime.

[edit] Detecting a target hit

The functionality of the Super Scope makes use of the cathode ray tube inside the video monitor. (CRTs were the only affordable TV monitors until the late 1990s, when this method was popularized.) The screen is drawn by a scanning electron beam that travels across the screen starting at the top until it hits the end, and then moves down to update the next line. This is done repeatedly until the entire screen is drawn, and appears instantaneous to the human eye as it is done very quickly.

When the player pulls the trigger, the computer (often assisted by the display circuitry) times how long it takes the electron beam to excite the phosphor at the location at which the gun is pointed. It then calculates the targeted position based on the monitor's horizontal refresh rate (the fixed amount of time it takes the beam to get from the left to right side of the screen). Either the computer provides a time base for the horizontal refresh rate through the controller's connector (as in the Super Scope), or the gun reads the composite video signal through a T-connector on the A/V cable (as in the GunCon 2). Once the computer knows where the gun is pointed, it can tell through collision detection if it coincides with the target or not.

Many guns of this type (including the Super Scope) ignore red light, as red phosphors have a much slower rate of decay than green or blue phosphors. So some (but not all) games brighten the entire screen for a frame in order to get a more reliable fix on the position.

Display timing is useless with plasma, LCD, and DLP, which refresh all pixels at the same time.

[edit] Legacy

The Super Scope was never very successful commercially. Critics blasted it as a bulky and cumbersome device that was difficult to use, especially in comparison to the lightweight NES Zapper. Consumers were also frustrated by the Super Scope's quick battery consumption. After four hours of continuous gameplay, the six AA batteries had to be replaced. In addition, the device was hurt by a lack of compatible software, although it is difficult to know whether a lack of software can be blamed for the Scope's unpopularity, or if the Scope's unpopularity simply scared off software developers.

[edit] Appearances within video games

The Super Scope has appeared in several video games for several Nintendo products. For example, in Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube, the Super Scope appears as an item that can be fired as an actual weapon. The Super Scope also appears in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga as a weapon carried by the Sniper Bill enemy in Bowser's castle. The Super Scope also made an appearance in WarioWare: Touched! for the Nintendo DS at the end of the boss microgame Gunslinger, which is a ported version of Trick Shot in Hogan's Alley (arcade game). Along with it are the R.O.B., NES Zapper, and NES Advantage.

[edit] Trivia

The Super Scope made a cameo as a prop in the Super Mario Bros. movie. With some physical modifications and a different paint job, it appears as the "Devo Gun." The Devo Gun was a weapon capable of firing a shot that would cause the target to "de-evolve" into a creature from their genetic ancestry.

In Super Smash Bros Melee, the Super Scope is a weapon that randomly appears in the playing area. In the same game, the Super Scope also appears as an unlockable trophy. Note that not a single fighter handles it as specified in the Super Scope instruction manual.

All of the Super Scope games made by Nintendo have a soft-reset to the game's main title. This is accomplished by pausing the game, then, while holding CURSOR, the FIRE button must be pressed twice.