G'AIM'E Plug and Play Gun

Written by Joseph Moorer on 1/5/2026 for AV  

In previous articles and reviews, I have shared my undying love for light gun games. So much so, that I introduced the five-year-old (four-year-old at the time) to Duck Hunt. She loved it, but not as much as I loved it. For those of you who don't know, your Nintendo Zapper never worked with your flat screen TV, hence, you can't just break it out to show your little cousins what gaming used to be. So yes, we played them on CRTs, because I'm a gamer. I've also bought two Sinden light guns, which work with modern TVs utilizing a white border around the screen. At first, it's noticeable, but I got used to it after a while. It was way better than the competition's sensor solution, requiring you to attach four separate sensors to your screen. Even VR scratched the itch a little when they released light gun adjacent games. Under Cover was a love letter to (Bandai) Namco's Time Crisis, while On Point was a love letter to (Bandai) Namco's Point Blank.

I still have the PlayStation 1 Guncon light guns, with both Time Crisis, and Point Blank. I was almost convinced that I needed to spend $700 on the Time Crisis Arcade 1Up cabinet, but I made an adult like decision and used my money for bills and gas. I don't know what it is with my obsession with light guns. I just love shooting bad guys, and zombies, and playing Lucky & Wild, where you had to drive and shoot at the same time. What a time to be alive. On the Gaming Nexus Show podcast, I told Kelly Gray that Time Crisis was one of my favorite games of all time. I called it iconic. And then it happened. Not a month after the podcast release, a company named Tassei Denki Co., Ltd showed up with a kickstarter for a plug-and-play light gun system called G'AIM'E. They have teamed up with Bandai Namco to rerelease Time Crisis on its 30th anniversary. Once again, the boyhood dreams are coming true. 

Before we get into the unboxing, let's go over the three configurations. The basic system gets you the light gun and the system. Time Crisis already comes packed in, and it's a plug and play, so there are no downloads, discs, cartridges, or anything. That's it. The premium edition comes with the light gun, a pedal, and the system, with three more (Bandai) Namco light gun games. Steel Gunner, Steel Gunner 2, and Point Blank. It also gives you a bonus gift: a Time Crisis lapel pin. The ultimate edition gives you all the above, a second gun, and a very cool Time Crisis diorama, that I haven't taken the plastic off yet. While the basic and premium edition come with 3' USB-C power and HDMI cables, the Ultimate comes with the actual power adapter. I think the Ultimate is the best value, but you can get by with the premium, in my opinion. A good thing to note is that this system does not connect to the internet at all, so you're not playing online with anyone, nor are you competing for some top leaderboard. It's just you and your gun. I know you don't like having people in your house, anyway. 

I received the ultimate edition, and the presentation here is absolutely amazing. The whole system comes in a very tight package. Once you get inside, there's a sheet full of quick start but important instructions. The top layer presents the gun and the system. The cable to the wired gun is a braided 10' USB-C cable. Under the system is the HDMI cable. Once you peel off the top layer, the second layer has another gun tucked into the slot, and the pedal neatly stashed in its place. The pedal also comes with an all-black braided USB-C cable. These pieces fit so well together that I want to put the entire system back in the box after playing with it every time. Finally, on the bottom layer is smaller boxes with the diorama, the USB-C power cable and adapter, and the pin. Whoever designed this packaging deserves a raise. Or they play a lot of Tetris—and still deserve a raise. 

Plugging everything in is a cinch and has a satisfying click to it. Again, the guns and the pedal are USB-C and go to the front. If you're playing Time Crisis, it's a single-player game, so the gun goes into the left slot, and the pedal goes into the right. The power button and reset button are on the front as well. On the back is your HDMI and power cable ports. I say all this to say that you could not mess this up if you wanted to. Once it's all hooked up, you're ready to go. Well, kind of. The system will not switch on with just a push of the power button. I have to point out that as thorough as the instructions are, the other quick start guide is the one that tells you that you have to hold the power button for a second or two. Once you're in, it plays this video out the gate. 

After watching the whole video, I calibrated my gun to what I thought was good enough. The four games pop up on the screen, and I'm in. This is a 1-to-1 arcade port of Time Crisis. This is not a remake. The scratchy voices are here. The intro takes me back to listening to the attract mode in the arcades. I know every word. I click the trigger, and the gun sound echoes through the room. The sound quality is next level. I don't remember hearing it like this. The game starts and I hear the Wild Dog say, "My men will gun him down." I'm losing my mind. I'm ready to show off the skills. The presentation was fantastic. The quick start guide was thorough. The calibration video at the beginning told me all the things to do. I'm comfortably on my couch, pointing my G'AIM'E light gun at the 55" OLED screen. The pedal is under my sock so I don't break it. It has rubber feet on the bottom, but I have carpet in the room. The game screams, "Action!" and then...I miss almost every shot. 

How is this possible? I did all the right things. Now, I'm questioning myself. Did I lose my skills over the last 30 years? Am I trash? Should I have bought the Arcade 1up Time Crisis to get my fix? Did I get a bad unit? What is a quince? We can answer all of these questions by troubleshooting against the guide. On the quick start sheet, it warns me that "accurate calibration is essential to how G'AIM'E works. Please take your time when calibrating the gun." I'm known to be a little impatient, so with a click of the reset button, I can recalibrate the gun. I can also do this by holding a button on the right side of the gun, which opens a menu to get me to recalibration. So, I recalibrate. I take into account that the G'AIM'E system "uses one screen detection," and if other screens are visible by the camera, (it) may affect the performance of the gun calibration. There's a CRT television to the left on an AV cart. Don't ask. Off to the bedroom. 

The bedroom has a Mini LED LG 55" television. Surely, I'll be better there. I jump into bed, get as far away as possible, and this time the game is "Point Blank." This game is a shooting gallery kind of game and requires more accuracy than any other game in the library. The system will ask you to recalibrate every single time it's unplugged. I choose the beginner tier, which is 16 stages. Some stages give you an unlimited number of shots with a quota, while others set you up for pinpoint accuracy. This doesn't change a thing. I'm hitting some things, but every time I move the gun, it shoots way off the mark. I am out after three stages. Again, I own Point Blank on the PlayStation 1, and I've played it at length. There's no way I'm this bad. To check off more boxes, I just fire the light gun at the TV for the entire round. My shots are all over the screen. But maybe it's because "bright light reflecting onto the screen may affect gun calibration performance. If this happens, close the curtains and turn off any nearby lights so that only the screen is visible to the gun camera." What?!

I tried Time Crisis again, even though I had to use the button on the left side of the gun instead of the pedal to hide between shots and reload. Nothing but continue screens and bad shots. I tried this system on a 32" LCD TV hanging on my wall in the game room. I tried it on a curved monitor in that same room. I tried it on my living room OLED. A curved TV at a friend's house. Their OLED TV hanging on their living room wall. I even broke out the PlayStation and hooked the Guncon and the PlayStation to the AV cart's CRT television. That worked perfectly, even though it pointed out how much compression Namco had to do to get that game on the PlayStation. The frustration seeps into my old soul. Something has to give. This amazingly presented product was supposed to be the answer. It was supposed to take me back. Now I feel like the thing is just broken, with no arcade employee to come and fix it. I have a box, with 10-foot cables all over the place, and nothing to show for it. I don't even want to play Steel Gunner. I don't want to do anything. This system is supposed to just work. I'm not even upset about the lack of kickback the gun has. It has a "recoil" feature you can toggle on and off, but it's more like a rumble pack than anything else. I just want answers. 

The way the G'AIM'E works is using a "high-resolution camera, and AI instead of infrared. It's supposed to detect and adjust to any display from 15" to 150", for smooth accurate gameplay from various angles and distances." Then I read this:

"The AI is trained on vast datasets to grasp key features—such as geometric shape, edge profiles, and pixel patterns. This training allows the AI to develop a deep, conceptual understanding of what defines a screen. When a new image is captured, the AI uses this learned knowledge to analyze it, identifying regions that exhibit screen-like features. It can then accurately determine the screen’s boundaries and vertices within the image."

Now what I'm not going to do is automatically write off something that uses AI. I'm also not about to spiral out on my thoughts of AI. If you ever want to hear my thoughts on it, buy me a coffee. I digress, I'm not here to dump on this system. I just want the thing to work. And right now, the AI isn't working. I went extreme. I measured 11.5' from my television to where I needed to stand, instead of comfortably on my couch. I dragged the cables over my couch and dropped the pedal to the floor. I turned off every single light in the room. I turned the CRT sideways. I recalibrated the light gun with more patience than a person in line at an amusement park during the summer on the weekend. I was ready. Sherudo Garo tells Rachel McPherson that her father will pay the price for destroying the imperial rule! 

The results were the similar. While there was a little more accuracy, this system requires you to jump through way too many hoops to just shoot at things and bad guys from the '90s. It seems like every time I move the gun, it loses the calibration and resets itself. I do love the features of the gun, because they look just like the guns in Time Crisis. I love the fact that this is a tribute to the series. I love that Point Blank and Time Crisis are just readily available on my current modern TV, but that is where the buck stops. Once you get into the game, the fun time runs out. I could blame myself by being overly excited for it. In the options, you can turn crosshairs on for Time Crisis, and they are already on for Steel Gunner 1 and 2. The crosshairs also give it away for how jumpy the camera in the gun is. An inaccurate light gun for Point Blank really doesn't sell it for me. I've spent days on G'AIM'E. In its current state, instead of just working, it needs work. I suspect a patch is coming, but I don't have any clue when. 

Again, the presentation, sound quality, look and feel of the system is absolutely amazing. It is indeed worthy of its praise, and a celebration of light gun games. I just wish I could play the game and get that fun factor. Perhaps I'm being too hard, because I've been a fan of this game for 30 years, and I'm not even talking about Time Crisis's sequels. I want to give this more accolades. I want to be passionate about it. I want to give it more love. I cannot do that, because as of right now, I can't even shoot 20 piranhas on the first level in the beginner course of Point Blank. Now the gun is sitting on the back of my couch, and I am wondering if people are experiencing something akin to me. I look it up on Google. Yep. It's not just me. Imagine getting a cake made for your birthday and it looks stunning. The vision you manifested was exactly what you got. The people sing happy birthday to you, and then you cut the cake and serve it. You find out that inside the cake it's just vanilla. Regular vanilla cake. I'll eat it, but where's the funfetti? Where's the icing inside? Where is it?!