Christmas Day will bring an extra flair of joy (and frustration) to Wii-U gamers everywhere as NES launch title and undeniable classic Duck Hunt hits the Nintendo Virtual Console via eShop on December 25.
Players will be using the Wii remote and not the traditional Zapper to play, which means the satisfying crisp sound of trigger pulls will not be present. Duck Hunt on Wii-U will be a direct port with no additional content, so the original ducks, that snarky dog (that you always want to shoot) and the clay pigeon mode are all there in all of their 8-bit glory.
The game will also still feature two player mode and the exponentially increasing difficulty that made the original game such a hit will be present as well.
Naturally, the original Nintendo Zapper wouldn’t work on modern day flat-screen TVs. The Zapper used “light detection” technology, wherein the game would cause the entire screen to go black upon squeezing the trigger and the Zapper’s sensor would detect whether or not a white square, representing the target, was hit. Because flat screen TVs don’t project the way CRT TVs did, the Zapper just flat-out wouldn’t work.
Nintendo hasn’t announced a price for the VC version of Duck Hunt but most of their NES titles on the Virtual Console are priced at a modest $4.99.
Sound off in the comments below! Are you excited to play Duck Hunt on Wii-U Christmas Day?
