73. Lupin III: The Shooting

(Arcade, Sega, 2001)
A lot of lightgun games made the draw into this list, which is fair enough as many of them are very popular and they are one of the few genres that still appear in what little arcades are left (especially here in Britain) The chances of this one appearing anywhere soon are unlikely, which is a tragedy of epic proportions.

I was lucky enough to spend some time in Tokyo in 2002. Of course, the first thing you should do when visiting an exotic land is seek out and enjoy the sites and local culture, or just go to the arcades. Wanna take a guess what I did?
Anyway, amongst the rows of Virtua Fighters and Dog walking simulators (No, really) I came across this gem of a shooter from Sega featuring my favourite manga/anime character, Lupin III. Gentleman thief Lupin has been the subject of many games in Japan and his exploits appear on various consoles including Nes, Snes, Saturn and PS2, sadly, none of these games were translated to the West, That's just the way things go.
Lupin games: 0, Dragonball games: 500,000

Lupin III: The Shooting runs on the GD-ROM technology that enabled Sega to port their arcades at great speed to the awesome Dreamcast console with virtually no loss in quality. Lupin The Shooting is not ground-breaking, it almost seems more like it was made for fan service than anything else, so as a hardcore Lupin fan I thought it was brilliant. One or two players take up the firearms of Lupin and his sharpshooting comrade, Jigen Daisuke and blast their way across the globe in some very varied missions, ranging from the usual "shoot bad guys" setup to missions where you have to use the gun to stop missiles, suck up gems with a vacuum and even drive a car (Don't ask)
As you fight through each level, various voices and samples cry out whilst cutaways and stills fly into shot. Each level is based on scenes either from the Lupin TV series or from his various films, its almost like watching a "classic clips" show, except with interactive violence. SOLD.
Lupin III: The Shooting is a another quality lightgun game from Sega, but oddly, with the attention to detail, various stills and clips, samples, missions based on episodes and use of original soundtrack, the game feels far more like it is a tribute to the characters and their universe than it is an actual game. For fans of Rupan Sansei, this game is mana from heaven, for everyone else, its just a good shooter.

This game never made it to Dreamcast, which is a real shame. However, DC emulation is really coming along and it seems likely that fans will only have to hang on a little longer and hopefully Lupin's fabled Walther P-38 will be in their hands.

(As with House of The Dead, there is a typing variant to this game which uses a keyboard)