Crypt Killer

Crypt Killer is a Konami arcade shooter that this record dates to 1997. The coin-op original is older, from the middle of the decade, and 1997 corresponds better to the later home conversions — dates diverge this way routinely for titles that hit arcades first and consoles afterwards.

Konami was then a leading maker of light-gun cabinets. A game of this kind has no free movement: the camera pulls you along a fixed route, and all you control is aim and reload. That is exactly why it can be understood in seconds and why it paid so well on the arcade floor. Magazines hold a limited number of shots, so reloading off-screen becomes part of the rhythm.

Thematically it is a horror march through skeletons and monsters, a genre that flooded arcades in the second half of the nineties. Cabinets typically carried more than one gun, so two or three people could shoot side by side, and the game was sold above all as a shared attraction. Machines like this were placed where they could be seen, because the cabinet advertised itself.

At home this type always loses part of its point, because it depends on the weight and accuracy of a physical gun. It stays historically valuable as a snapshot of the arcade just before consoles with their own 3D action pushed it aside. Aiming with a mouse is a different experience, but the structure of the game reads clearly enough.

You can launch Crypt Killer in your browser from its OldGame.cz page without installing anything.