#78: Super Scope 6

Released In: 1992
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo

      In this cartridge that came bundled with the Super Scope hardware, you choose one of six different games to play with your SNES light gun: Blastris A, Blastris B, Mole Patrol, and three different LazerBlazer variants - Intercept, Engage, and Confront. Each of the games is filled with mindless, addictive fun but beware: the Super Scope requires six fresh AA batteries for every four hours of gameplay.

Syd Lexia: Back when I was in college, I thought it would be fun to stand on top of the Student Union Building and pretend to shoot at people with a broken old Super Scope. It wasn't. Kudos to campus security for their swift response, but I wish they would have been a little less rough. Do you know how much money three facial reconstruction surgeries cost? IT'S A LOT.

The Super Scope highlights one of Nintendo's biggest problems, their penchant for releasing poorly supported peripherals. First, there was the Power Pad. Then, there was the Super Scope 6. Then you had the Game Boy Camera, the Game Boy Printer, the N64 microphone, the GBA e-Reader, those fucking Donkey Konga bongos, and some others that aren't even worth mentioning. What's worse is that the gaming industry seems to be moving towards this sort of bullshit instead of away from it, with gimmicky games like Dance Dance Revolution, Karaoke Revolution, and Guitar Hero enjoying massive popularity. I'm all for creativity in the gaming industry, but I wish that game companies would focus their creative energies on designing fresh new games that use the controllers that we already have instead of doling out space-wasting hardware that only works with one fucking game. And I'd like to know what the Japanese are doing with all these goddam guitars and dance pads... they live in 10' x 10' apartments for fuck's sake!

greeneyedzeke: On its own, Super Scope 6 was nothing special. You got six little shooting parlor games that offered, at best, a few hours’ distraction. What made this cart fucking shine with the light of a thousand million suns was the peripheral that came with it – the Nintendo Super Scope.

Remember the classic NES Zapper, that gray (and possibly red) pistol that allowed you to shoot ducks and get mocked by dogs? Remember how it fit snugly into the palm of your hand and looked quaint, almost innocent? Apparently Nintendo felt that the Super Nintendo was so “Super” that only a goddamn shoulder-mounted rocket launcher would fully convey the essence of what 16-bit arcade shooting should be. This thing didn’t contort into several fully functional configurations the way Sega’s Menacer did, but it didn’t need to. It was a fucking rocket launcher.

Valdronius: The Super Scope was an amazing peripheral. Unfortunately, it got the shaft even worse than the Zapper did, as you had to buy it separately. Super Scope 6 came packaged with it, but still. I can only remember two other games that were made for it: Yoshi's Safari and Battleclash, both of which were actually pretty cool. Of the six games on Super Scope 6, Mole Patrol is by far the most memorable; it was also the most fun. Who doesn't enjoy shooting little cute critters? I seem to also remember some puzzle games, and a game where you had to interecept missiles, but Mole Patrol was definitely where it was at.

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