Light guns were everywhere when I was a kid. From Duck Hunt on the NES being a significant part of some of my earliest memories, to countless classic arcade shooters, and eventually the joy of recreating some of my favorite experiences at home via the absolutely unparalleled Namco GunCON accessory.
Many a late night were spent in my early high school years with friends playing Point Blank and Time Crisis until the wee hours of the morning. Between the national shock of the Columbine tragedy and the rapid decline of CRT TVs in favor of flat panels, the light gun genre met a quick, unceremonious end.
By the end of 2001, nobody wanted to be seen putting plastic guns in the hands of teenagers anymore – and for nearly 20 years after, that’s how things remained. Glimpses of the lost years of light gun glory would occasionally show up in arcades, and accessories like the WiiMote and Playstation Move certainly gave the genre a needed shot in the arm here and there – but it was never the same.
A while back, I’d written a guide about how to use old Wiimotes as Light Guns in MAME. Just the sort of on-the-cheap solution to a problem that I love. Great as the Wiimotes do work though, it always just felt a little bit off. They work, to be certain, but it feels like something of a stop-gap solution. I’d always wondered if the premium modern light guns being made today could recreate the classic CRT sessions I remember so fondly?
Wonderfitter are here to say, yes we can, and do it with such a degree of realism that it almost makes you wonder if you should be allowed to own something this close to a real pistol. 371g, it’s a little more than half the weight of a real unloaded Glock 17.
Disclosure:
The device reviewed was provided as a review sample by Wonderfitter. This had no bearing on the conclusion of the review, nor did Wonderfitter have the opportunity to make edits or changes to the review before publishing.
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Unboxing and Quality
I received the M17 Gen 2 package in two separate shipments. The Wonderfitter VisionPro camera system arrived first, followed by the gun itself – including a number of accessories along with the Gen 1 “Big Screen Mode”, mobile, and VR sensors.
The idea for mobile and VR is that you attach your cellphone to the slide of the gun, and mobile software relays actions to the phone/VR display in real time. Wonderfitter said that I was to focus on the new Vision Pro Camera system, so that’s what I’ll be doing in this review, but the graphic below should give you an idea of how the other modes/accessories worked.
Let’s get this out of the way now. This gun is kind of crazy. Wonderfitter boasts on a previous Indiegogo campaign that “M17 delivers authentic weight, balance, and tactile control through motorized recoil—offering full-scale digital simulators with zero real-weapon components“. This is an accurate statement. So much so it appears that a previous fundraising round on Kickstarter was suspended due to their weapons policy. A sticky wicket to find yourself in as the maker of light gun accessories, for sure.
The M17 feels like a real gun. If you took this outside and pulled it out in public, there is a high likelihood that you’d be shot by someone with an actual Glock. Other than the clip protruding slightly at the bottom (which could be mistaken as an extendo-mag) the M17 looks and feels disturbingly similar to the real thing.
A copper-colored chamber does not do a sufficient job at communicating that this is not a real firearm. I could rob a liquor store with it right now, no problem. How you feel about this is up to you, just don’t let your kids throw it in their backpacks for show and tell unless you want your schedule tied up with court dates for the foreseeable future.
Public safety warnings aside, this is a seriously premium-feeling piece of kit. The details are all here. The trigger safety is functional, as well as the clip release. The slide can be pulled back to expose a chamber area. You can even attach real accessories like a laser to the included slide attachment. I cannot imagine that there’s another light gun currently on the market that hits all these beats for realism. In that regard, the M17 is certainly as-advertised.
The M17 Gen 2, as confirmed by Wonderfitter, is not a new pistol when sat next to the Gen 1 release. The Gen 2 portion refers to the package as a whole when combined with the new VisionPro camera tracking system and software.
This Thing Has Kick
One of the biggest selling points of a gun like the M17, is undoubtedly the realistic recoil action. Feeling the gun kickback in your hands offers a sense of realism and immersion that was never available back in the PSX GunCon days. The functioning reload mechanic of pressing the clip Eject button and then pressing the clip back into the pistol is immensely satisfying. You can see the video of my co-host Wyatt from the We Don’t Have It Yet podcast (shameless plug) doing his best John Wick impression above.
I’ve probably fired a few thousand rounds through the M17 in testing at this point, and I’ve not gotten any indication that things were wearing or grinding at any time. Where all that awesome recoil action does take a toll though, is battery life. I was only able to get about 90 minutes of continuous gaming on the M17 before it was time for a recharge – which takes about ~45 minutes on a USB-C fast charger.
Testing the Wonderfitter M17 Gen 2 and Vision Pro Camera
I tested the M17 Gen 2 system on both a normal TV, and a PC monitor via my MAME cabinet. Both setups didn’t seem to be any trouble for the new Vision Pro camera system. Setup was as simple as installing the included software package on my Windows PC, pointing the camera at the display, and letting the webcam-looking sensor map the screen and its location.
From there, you can opt to test the gun using a number of different shooting range Police Trainer type exercises in “Shooting Lab Mode”, or put the system into “Light Gun mode” which minimizes the included software and has the gun act as a virtual mouse on the screen. In theory this should translate into immediately accessible in-game controls, but I did find that there was tinkering involved. I needed to switch some input settings around in MAME, but things seem to work well once it was registering all of my inputs.
If you’re considering the M17 Gen 2 for your own MAME setup, just make sure that you crank down the mouse sensitivity by half unless you want the reticle flying all over the place. Once they were dialed in, I was successfully able to test Virtua Cop and Point Blank, my light gun white whales. The tracking felt clean, if just slightly behind my real world movements. The trigger is perfectly responsive, and the M17’s recoil function is endlessly satisfying.
The included Shooting Lab Mode is simplistic in appearance, but there’s actually quite a bit of fun to be had here. It’d be great for warming up your sights before a spirited Operation Wolf session. Amusingly, Duck Hunt is even included in the package. If you enjoyed Police Trainer in the arcades of old, you’ll feel comfortable playing the included Shooting Lab Mode.
Any game that will work with a mouse/crosshair setup should work with the M17. Provided that everything stays connected, which I had some issues with. After backing out of one of the included training simulations (which despite their simple appearance are actually quite fun) I would regularly find the gun reporting that it was still connected to the system, while the software seemed to be struggling to re-establish the connection.
The included Bluetooth adapter didn’t seem to make any difference. I think this 1.0 Beta software might not be quite ready for primetime, but it does give hope about the potential of the simple setup process and plug and play nature of the gun/sensor combo.
Once the camera system is tracking your screen, you turn on the M17 gun via a button hidden on the clip mechanism, and it connects wirelessly to the PC/Camera via Bluetooth. Wonderfitter included an extended range Bluetooth USB adapter with my M17 unit, and I recommend its use over any included BT adaptor on your PC. Kudos to the folks over at AceMagic, because the W1 unit I used to test this setup seemed to do great with the onboard Bluetooth.
Final Thoughts
The Vision Pro accessory is certainly a step forward for modern light gun systems, but its Windows-only nature is a strike (for now). I run my MAME PC arcade cabinet off of Batocera, meaning that the M17 is better suited as a realistic gun paperweight than functioning accessory on that system, but it’s still early days.
Would I be willing to move everything back over to Windows to have access to a light gun library with the M17? Maybe if I had a second unit and the ability to play with friends was being dangled in front of me, but the already steep price tag means that you’re in for the cost of a modern console or more by the time you’ve got multiplayer gun gaming.
If realism is what you’re after, then the M17 has you covered, in spades. Once beta software hurdles are cleared, I’m confident that this could be a go-to solution for modern light gun gaming right alongside companies like Gun4IR. Like those units though, cost will likely be the biggest adoption factor. If they can get these units under $200 each, I think there’s a niche market to be had, but at an MSRP of $499 (financing campaign pricing is expected to be in the range of $249), I’m not sure that the software makes life easy enough for Joe Q Arcade Enthusiast just yet.
The hardware quality of the gun itself is excellent. It feels a bit like the early days of VR, where people still aren’t quite sure how to use it yet. If I were in the market for a gun like this, I’d want the opportunity to try it out and see if I get along with it first. If Wonderfitter could get a demo kiosk in a store like Microcenter, I think they’d quickly develop a loyal following.
The only issue being that with a gun that looks and feels this real, what retail outlet would want it on their show floor? Maybe it’s finally time that Bass Pro steps up and opens a PC section.
