Does This Play Duck Hunt on Flat Panel TVs? Should You Buy the Hyperkin Hyper Blaster HD Light Gun

In this video, we unbox and test out the Hyperkin Hyper Blaster HD, designed to allow you to play Duck Hunt on your modern flat-panel TV.

I've said it many times before but I am not a fan of CRTs. I think they're heavy, they don't look good, and they take up way too much space. One downfall of not using CRTs is the fact that I cannot play light gun games on modern flat-panel televisions. Hyperkin looks to change that with their new Hyper Blaster HD.

The Hyper Blaster HD is actually two components, the Hyper Blaster itself, & a cartridge adapter that you plug your Duck Hunt cartridge into before plugging into your system. The two pieces are designed to work in harmony so that when you pull the trigger on the Hyper Blaster the adapter helps the game register the hit when you make contact with a duck. While it sounds simple in practice, it has been one of the biggest challenges in Retro Gaming.

The Hyper Blaster gun has three different settings on it, high sensitivity, medium sensitivity, low sensitivity. This is to help accommodate for different lighting situations in different rooms. It's also an adjustment that allows you to compensate for distances between yourself and the TV you are playing on. One of the nice things about the blaster is the fact that it has a very long 10-foot cord. This will allow you to get the proper distance away from your television in just about any situation.

While I read through the manual, one thing that didn't sink in immediately was that once you power on your console, you need to tap the reset button to get the game to run. I frustrated myself for about 15 or 20 minutes because I did not pay attention to this detail.

I tested the Hyper Blaster HD on a number of different systems, all with varying levels of success. From Hyperkin's own Retron 2 HD, my HDMI modded NES 101 top loader, my NES front loader with a Blinking Light Win using composite going through a RetroTink 2x, the Hyper Blaster just did not work consistently. I take that back, on some systems it consistently did not work! I adjusted my distance, the sensitivity switch, the lighting in the room and my results varied wildly. I even tried it on GamerzTek 8-BitBoy Handheld NES clone, and that did not work either.

I tested multiple cartridges with Duck Hunt on it. My recently purchased Famicom version (going through a 60-to-72 pin adapter), a Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt Cart, and a Super Mario Bros/World Class Track Meet/Duck Hunt cartridge, I tested them all. The only game that even loaded for me was the traditional 2-in-1 SMB/Duck Hunt cart. Again, having such a finite number of cartridges that this is compatible with is a detriment, not a strength.

Why it RoX:
- only $25
- promises to solve one of the biggest issues in Retro Gaming
- 10 ft long cord on the blaster

What can be improved?
- a consumer product like this just needs to work, and this doesn't
- when it does work, it doesn't miss. Like shooting away from the TV registers a hit
- glitchiness from the cartridge graphically
- the trigger does not have that nice hard click of the original Nintendo zapper
- only compatible with Duck Hunt
- not compatible with the Famicom version of Duck Hunt

Should you buy one?
After so much promise, I can't in good faith recommend the Hyper Blaster HD. it simply takes too much to get it to work at all, let alone get it to work consistently. Off-camera I did test it on smaller TVs, non-4k TVs, budget-friendly TVs, and all of my results echoed what I saw here. I understand that they work to get it compatible with Duck Hunt, but it doesn't even work with all versions of Duck Hunt. The standalone Famicom cartridge does not work. The Super Mario Brothers, world-class track meet, Duck Hunt version of the cartridge does not work. It only works with certain provisions of the Mario Brothers Duck Hunt combo cartridge. With the poor results I encountered and low compatibility, this is a pass from me for now.

#Hyperkin #HyperBlaster #DuckHunt

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