For anyone who grew up in the '90s, Duck Hunt was seminal part of the Nintendo experience. It was about as basic as shooters can get, and yet, it was cutting-edge tech back on the NES.
Nowadays, most people would think of Duck Hunt as nothing more than nostalgia. Sure, it's a great game, but it's so simple and outdated by today's standards. On top of that, there are plenty of gamers who only know of the Duck Hunt Dog from the latest iteration of Super Smash Bros. — in short, Nintendo doesn't seem to be in much of a rush to revitalize one of its oldest franchises.
Of course, if Nintendo won't update a franchise, then the fans almost certainly will. Joseph Delgado, a computer science student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, has updated Duck Hunt in a way that few people would have even thought possible: with a little help from an Oculus Rift developer kit, Delgado has brought an NES classic into the realm of virtual reality.
If you ever wondered what Duck Hunt would look like in 3D, here it is!
Surprisingly, the gameplay translates extremely well into the third dimension. The core of the game remains the same — shoot ducks as they try to fly away — it's just that the world now wraps around the player. As the video demonstrates, there's a good chance that ducks will appear behind the shooter — while it may not be that big a step up from a technical standpoint, it turns the gameplay on its head in a way that only VR tech could.
Duck Hunt VR doesn't seem to be some half-baked tech demo, either: the entirety of the game has been translated into the Oculus Rift, complete with the old skeet shooting gallery and extra challenges. Even more impressive is the in-game lodge that Delgado has built — instead of simply shooting a few boxes on screen, Delgado built a small hub area from scratch, complete with interactive TV displays and empty bottles to shoot.
Nintendo may be passing on the VR craze for the time being, but Duck Hunt VR is the kind of project that makes a strong case for a virtual reality-enabled Nintendo console.
As for Delgado, he's previously stated that he plans on making Duck Hunt VR available for free, as well as porting it over to HTC's Vive headset. For the time being, you can keep up with the development process over at Delgado's blog.
