When Time Crisis made its way to the PlayStation, Namco decided that a gun was needed to support it – and boldly, it also decided that the existing model introduced by Konami just didn’t meet its requirements. The result was the creation of a new peripheral, the G-Con 45 (or GunCon, outside of Europe) which had a few new features over the old standard. For enhanced accuracy, the gun hooked into the composite video signal of the console itself, and two buttons mounted either side of the barrel allowed players to perform secondary actions, such as hiding in Time Crisis.

Of course, the G-Con 45 wasn’t without its flaws. It wasn’t backwards compatible with existing gun games such as Die Hard Trilogy, and players who used RF or RGB SCART to hook up their consoles often got home to find that they needed an extra adaptor to use the peripheral at all. However, it received a good amount of support, as the existing Konami standard was dropped and all new guns adopted the Namco technology. For that reason it remains an essential PlayStation peripheral, so long as you have the CRT TV necessary to run it.

Essential Game

Point Blank 2

While holding a gun might automatically put you in mind of military themes, we’d argue that the G-Con 45 game you must own is this collection of shooting mini-games. Despite its family-friendly comedic tone, the game is an extremely diverse test of your shooting skills. Whether you’re trying to take out a moving target with a single shot, attempting to destroy a huge target with rapid fire or even playing a gun-assisted game of spot the difference, you’ll have a whale of a time – and it’s even better when played as a party game, thanks to the two-player support.