| Consumer Advice |
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Choosing between the Dream Blaster and the Starfire LightBlaster
is like choosing between the lesser of two evils. On one hand, the Dream Blaster looks nicer and sports better placement of
features. On the other hand, Starfire is more comfortable to use and doesn't have ergonomic
flaws. With either choice, expect widely-reported calibration problems that range from television to television. So make sure
you hold on to that receipt when you've decided on your purchase. My personal recommendation would be to side with comfort. Go
with the Starfire LightBlaster. |
On the surface, the Mad Catz Dream Blaster seems like it has everything a light-gun needs to succeed. It's got a nice
design that resembles a Star Trek phaser, an intelligently-placed directional joystick hat right above the hilt of the
gun, nice rubber padding on the handle, and a open slot for either the VMU or a vibration pak. The gun also has more
typical bonuses like autofire and an auto-reload capability. To top it off, it's even officially endorsed by Sega (who
chose not to import their own light-gun; currently available only in Japan).
It's too bad that the gun's quality goes downhill upon actual play. First of all, this gun itself generates a loud
and somewhat annoying clicking noise upon pulling the trigger. So much so that it competes with the sounds of the game
unless you really pump up your tube's volume. But the thing that really does in the Dream Blaster is its ergonomics.
After extended minutes of manually firing the gun at a rapid pace (especially against boss-type characters in
House Of The Dead 2), my forearms were feeling some seriously numbing stress. I have a vast collection of light-guns (even the
much maligned Super Scope 6) and with the exception of Konami's Justifier, this is the only gun to really cause such
serious debilitation on my arm. Thankfully, the autofire mode (which requires auto-reload to be on at the same) was
able to relieve some of that stress, but that partially ruined the whole light-gun experience for me since I'm a purist
who likes to fire and reload the gun manually.
- Published December 2, 1999
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