As a kid living in the middle of nowhere, there wasn’t much to do. So when an arcade opened a couple of towns over, you best believe I jumped on my bike and made the most of it.
The multi-sensory overload of lights, sounds and smells made it my church, and one game became my place to pray: Time Crisis. The feeling of being in my own personal action movie took so much of my pocket money, but every pound spent was totally worth it.
And now, a whole 30 years after launch, I get to have that same feeling again right in my living room with the G’AIM’E Time Crisis lightgun bundle. It’s not completely as I remember it as a kid, but thanks to some nifty technology, the retro lightgun gameplay has been dragged into 2025 to work with all the best TVs.
Where to buy the G'AIM'E Time Crisis bundle in the US
Where to buy the G'AIM'E Time Crisis bundle in the UK
Trigger happy
So you may have seen me going hands-on with G’AIM’E light guns back at Gamescom 2025 — this plug and play box and combination of light gun and pedal has a nice build quality to it with buttons in just the right places for your fingers.
But how does it track where you’re aiming? Because the difference between CRT TVs and the flat screen panels of now is stark. In the past, a light gun would contain a light sensor in the barrel to detect a rapid flash of light from the screen, to indicate whether you’ve hit the target or not.
Today’s modern TVs rely on digital processing rather than the analog of CRT, so it’s unable to do this. The fix? AI. There is an NPU built into the gun itself, which has been trained on thousands of TVs big and small (from 15-150 inches to be exact). What this means is that after calibrating with a few shots at your screen, you’re getting that same accurate, low latency shooting gameplay that you know and love.
Not just Time Crisis
Of course, Time Crisis took up pretty much 90% of my time, that’s not all you can play on here. There are three other retro light gun classics on here too: Point Blank, Steel Gunner and Steel Gunner 2.
The former especially is a great addition for two-player. The inclusion of two USB-C ports means that in Time Crisis, you’re limited to using a button on the gun to break out of cover rather than both of you having pedals.
But in something like Point Blank that just requires you to point and shoot competitively, this setup is just right.
Meanwhile, for that real trip back in time, Steel Gunners 1 and 2 feel like a true time machine with its 2D graphics, and the upscaling at work here manages to maintain visuals nicely across all titles.
Where’s the clackety-clack?
I saw your comments on the TikTok and Instagram reel, and most said one thing in unison: where’s the recoil? The simple answer is it’s complicated.
So technically, there are haptics in the gun, and the snappiness of them in every gun shot does make for a nice level of recoil. However, the top of the barrel doesn’t slide like it used to on the old arcade machines, and you can’t help but miss the clackety clack of the light gun as you fire away.
Outlook
So what do we have here? Retro tech is definitely on the comeback, and the G’AIM’E Time Crisis pack is pretty perfectly timed for it. You’ll miss the kickback of the shooter, but the gameplay and serious throwback feels you'll go through more than make up for it.
This is a great buy if you’re looking to relive those arcade memories, and if you’re Christmas shopping for someone who’s gaming tastes start and end with the 90s, this is a gift they’ll love!
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