Vampire Night is a very good light-gun based shooting game. Unfortunately it isn't a brilliant game in its own right. It has retained all the flaws and shortcomings that seem to be the trademark of this type of game and no opportunity has been taken to make radical changes to a potentially interesting genre. You would think that between the two of them Sega and Namco would have a few novel concepts up their collective sleeves when it comes to arcade style light gun shooters. Unfortunately if they have, they have chosen not to use them in Vampire Night.

As stated before Vampire Night is far from a bad game. In fact if you compared it to other light gun titles it's definitely one of the best available. The game mechanics are almost identical to its stylistic predecessors. Aim the gun at the nasty thing on the screen, pull trigger, point gun off screen to reload, repeat until thumb bleeds. As you progress through the game nastier, bigger monsters do require a touch of strategy to defeat. You'll have to locate the weak spots of your tougher opponents and the traditional end of stage boss encounters require a bit of a tactical approach but it shouldn't really stretch anyone's mental ability too much.

An additional challenge has been added in the form of the 'sarcomas' that have attached themselves to the innocent villagers roaming around. These creatures act as parasites and will transform their host into a nasty beast if they aren't shot off or if you're too much of a poor shot and shoot the villager instead. Not a revolutionary feature by any means but it does make for a fairly interesting challenge.

The fabled 'light-gun game curse of limited replayability' is in full effect in Vampire Night unfortunately. Once you have mastered the game and played through a few times there isn't much incentive to return for future visits. There is a 'special' mode which allows you to build up an arsenal of weapons and items but it does seem to have been tacked on as a bit of an afterthought. The mini-games that are accessible through the games training mode are also a bit lacking. A two player mode is on offer and is in our opinion Vampire Night at its best. The thrills of being in an arcade with a friend are reproduced nicely and its well worth picking up an extra G-Con 2 (or G-Con 45 for that matter) to experience this.