Ludography
Point Blank X cover

2016 · Bandai Namco Entertainment · Arcade · Light gun shooter

Point Blank X

The fourth major entry in Namco's arcade light gun shooter series Point Blank.

Released
31 December 2016
Platforms
Arcade
Genres
ArcadeLight gun shooterShooter
Developers
Bandai Namco Entertainment
Publishers
Bandai Namco Entertainment
Modes
Multiplayer
Perspective
First person
Themes
Action

About

Point Blank, known as Gun Bullet (ガンバレット, Gan Baretto), or Gunvari (ガンバリ, Ganbari) in Japan, is a series of light gun shooter games developed by Namco for the arcade, PlayStation and Nintendo DS; the trilogy was first released in arcade in 1994 and was later ported onto the PlayStation. Point Blank DS was released in 2006 for the Nintendo DS featuring 40 challenges from the original series.

Media

Point Blank X screenshot 1

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Players use two attached light guns (in the case of the DS, a pen or in the case of the iOS version, touching the screen) to hit targets onscreen; missions require speed, quick judgment or pinpoint accuracy. The game consists of non-violent shooting contests where players are tasked with challenges such as shooting player-colored bulls-eyes, cardboard criminals, and other inanimate objects, not shooting bombs and cardboard cutouts of civilians (much like in Namco's first light-gun game, Steel Gunners), and protecting characters Dr. Don and Dr. Dan, among other miscellaneous challenges, similar to games like Police Trainer, and Area 51: Site 4 - and players choose the desired difficulty level (Practice, Beginner, Advanced, and Very Hard in the first game, or Training, Beginner, Advanced, and Insane in the second game onwards) which will determine how many stages must be finished to complete the game, as well as their overall difficulty.

Players are shown four missions in each grouping, and may attempt them in any order; they usually have only three lives for the entire game, but this may depend on the cabinet settings. Most stages have unlimited bullets, but some have a limited amount of ammo. Players lose lives if they fail to fulfill the stage quota, or shoot Do Not Shoot targets, such as Bombs, Civilians or the opponent's colour targets.

Reception

In Japan, it was the seventh highest-grossing dedicated arcade game of 1995. According to Electronic Gaming Monthly, Point Blank was a "cult favorite" in U.S. arcades.

The PlayStation version was the third best-selling video game in Japan for the week ending August 10, 1997.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Arcade31 December 2016Japan

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Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.