Best light gun for the Dreamcast?

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

If you use one of those PSX to DC controller plugs, could you use a Guncon 1 with a DC?

No, the Guncon 1&2 use a different type of lightgun tech that scans both the screen and incoming signal from the video cable.

[crux]

Do the Japanese and American guns work in some fundamentally different way or are the games themselves programmed differently, or is it something more rudimentary that keep one from working on the other region? If the Japanese one truly is the better gun, it would be nice to mod it to work on an American system. The Mad Catz gun works, but not as well as I'd like. I'd consider a better gun a reasonable justification for just using the import, but otherwise I prefer seeing everything in English.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Do the Japanese and American guns work in some fundamentally different way or are the games themselves programmed differently, or is it something more rudimentary that keep one from working on the other region? If the Japanese one truly is the better gun, it would be nice to mod it to work on an American system. The Mad Catz gun works, but not as well as I'd like. I'd consider a better gun a reasonable justification for just using the import, but otherwise I prefer seeing everything in English.

Sega actually disabled the official gun's functions from operating in the US via the DC's firmware over the crap caused by Columbine, but emulated games such as Virtua Cop 2 overcame this by emulating a compatible system's lightgun capability.

I'd love to see a way to get the official Japanese gun to work on an American machine, but I honestly wouldn't know where to start.

[Barry the Nomad]

I thought Japanese lightguns work on American machines, but its the American games that Japanese guns won't work with.

The only American games that the Japanese guns work with are Demolition Racer: No Exit (in the Big Car Hunter mini-game) and Virtua Cop 2.

On a side note: I have a Japanese Dreamcast lightgun that works perfectly with House of the Dead 2, Japanese version. However, this same gun has had trouble working with Death Crimson 2 in that I can fire off one shot and then nothing happns on additional shots. The d-pad and buttons still function. I doubt it's a hardware problem, and would be surprised if it was a software problem, considering the game runs perfectly, has no scratches and still plays with the hand controller.

[DCsegaDH]

I have the Madcatz lightgun for the DC, it works great but it kind of reminds me of a glue gun. I think the best looking one is the official Saturn lightgun and the Guncon2.

[jfe2]

I have the Madcatz lightgun for the DC, it works great but it kind of reminds me of a glue gun. I think the best looking one is the official Saturn lightgun and the Guncon2.

I love the Saturn Stunner light gun! I wonder if there is an adpater that would let you use that for the Dreamcast. I think I remember seeing an adapter for the normal controllers before.

[equalsign]

I thought Japanese lightguns work on American machines, but its the American games that Japanese guns won't work with.

This is truth. The official Japanese and European light guns work perfectly fine on American consoles as long as you're playing a Japanese or European game. As far as I can tell, the JPN and PAL light guns are completely identical and there are no compatibility issues when mixing regions (though I only have PAL games to test this with).

[SNYPE]

I own but the Mad Catz and Interact light guns and I can say for sure that the Mad Catz gun isn't very good. In fact the Mad Catz sensor goes back and forth by about an inch which doesn't seem like much but it's enough to miss a headshot and if you're sitting away from the tv the distance will only grow (I have my DC set up on a computer stand over VGA). The Interact gun however calibrates fine and is a thousand times more accurate. I use my Mad Catz gun on occasion but for anything that takes accuracy I use my Interact gun.