I've noticed a niche community running through the gaming world: retro gaming.You get things like the Retro Duo console and other similar consoles which allow you to play NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis carts, as well as emulators, and reissues of the old games (like Sonic the Hedgehog or Super Mario Brothers) on the present consoles. It seems that a respectable number of gamers either want to return to the by-gone days of their carefree youth, or are younger gamers who want to either get in touch with their roots or see what all the fuss is about. But this niche seems to be largely ignoring a market that, with recent technologies coming to all present platforms, should be right on the threshold of a triumphant return. The technology is, obviously, motion gaming. The genre is none other than the On-Rails Shooter.

Yeah, the Wii has seen a few reissues like House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return and a new installment in House of the Dead: Overkill. They have Link's Crossbow trainer, but that works like Wii sports, it merely piques your interest. They also have the Cabela huning games, but almost no one takes those seriously. There are some other titles floating around out there that all come across as gimmick games that no one takes seriously. I know the Playstation Move has The Shoot, a present day incarnation of a railed shooter where you take on the role of a sharpshooting movie stuntman filming the latest gun toting action flick. These are nice, but with titles like the Midway Arcade Treasures series, the forthcoming release of the Super Mario collection (ala Super Mario Allstars from the SNES), the full reissue of the Sonic The Hedgehog games from the Genesis on one disc, and all of the Wii's Virtual Console downloadables I feel that the Retro Gaming community could be doing more to bring back this genre than what's happening now.

Sega is always quick to remind people of their great contributions to the gaming world. They obviously did so with the HotD games for the Wii. Why not a reissue of the Virtua Cop line? The Sega Saturn version featured a secondary path unique to that version. The Dreamcast reissue came with a similar variation. I'm positive a Wii/Move/Kinect reincarnation would have the same sort of thing. Sega could also revive Confidential Mission or Death Crimson OX or any of the railed shooters from their ill-fated Dreamcast. Their railed shooters were so much fun. There are so many from the Sega library that could be brought back.

The arcade had so many shooters (not just Sega titles, obviously) that it almost isn't worth trying to name them here. I can still remember a little gem called CarnEvil. That one was great. The villain's name was even "Tokentaker". There are so many buried treasures from the arcade days that would be a perfect fit for both the retro gaming scene and the motion gaming resurrection of the light gun games. Of course, I imagine that with companies that came and went through the arcades and mergers and acquisitions acquiring the correct licenses and rights would be almost impossible.

We have games like Time Crisis who are still appearing because Namco continues to reatin their licenses (as well as keeping their doors open). But the available number of established franchises and reissued games is slim at this point. I want to see more. Motion gaming is the only thing that can save the light gun genre. On current HD TVs the old light guns don't work. Someone needs to make a push to bring this thing back like the old arcade games!

We need Sally Struthers to do a long-winded commercial where she sniffles as she walks through an barren, dusty, windswept landscape and crys over discarded items like the old NES gun, the Super Scope, and the old Gun Cons. She can talk about how the colors in the plastic is being bleached out by the sun, the glass is broken out of barrels, the triggers stuck, never to detect the light of a digital target again. Then she shows the old discarded tube televisions and talks about the hours of delight they brough to the masses, only to be made obsoloete and phased out by the new HD TVs to be neglected and forgotten by those who used to cherish them. Then she eats an entire box of Ding Dongs and an ethiopian boy.

Maybe we can have a telethon and interrupt marathons of CSI or the Star Wars saga on Spike with washed up, obnxious celebrities pleading with the public (and corporate sponsors) for money. We could throw in video game titans like Will Wright, Yuji Naka, Yu Suzuki (I feel he would be obligated since Virtua Cop is his legacy), Hideo Kojima, and anyone else who would show up. We could have Shigero Miyamoto playing the Super Mario theme on wine glasses or Hideo Kojima constantly creeping onto the stage to scare hosts and guests (hiding under a cardboad box, of course). We need to do something and these companies know that there's a market for this once glorious genre so that it may bask in the light of the retro gamer movement as it so rightfully deserves.