I don't feel fully qualified to discuss Gunfighter II's technical issues, given the fact that the copy I bought last week came with an enormous, deep scar on the disc. Who knows how much of my experience can be attributed to that. It mainly seemed to affect the "NOW SAVING - DO NOT TURN OFF" screen, which would take up to a full minute to bypass as the audio glitched out. I don't like to use that worn-out "cursed" patter, but it was clear that I was never going to come back to the misery of running this disc. I either had to do it tonight, or face the very real possibility that it would never play again.

Gunfighter II is a sequel to a Q4 2001 PS1 lightgun game. It doesn't appear to have been brought into production because of the prior game's success, but the idea that these games cost nothing to make and can be thrown together in a month. This is a game from UK developer, Rebellion, years before their cult success with the Sniper Elite series. Their recent history featured titles like The Mummy, Largo Winch and the GBA version of Snood.

Let's talk about the things I like. Both Gunfighter games take obvious inspiration from Time Crisis 1. You reload while ducking behind cover, run from spot to spot, and your gun can take down enemies in a single shot (unfortunately, there are a few too many exceptions to this in Gunfighter II). I've also come to accept I really enjoy wild west settings. Saloons, canyons, desert bandit encampments, singing sorrowful campfire songs to your horse... that stuff all sounds pretty good to me. I could subsist on a diet of bourbon and beans quite happily. Rebellion understand the potential of its theme, and levels explore a good number of those old tropes. The game even utilises the G-Con 2's more advanced tracking for a duel at high noon with the final boss. Cracking.

Let's get into it, then.

Gunfighter II makes one thing abundantly clear - Lightgun games really need strong art direction. Time Crisis was so lucky having mid-nineties Namco on its side. Everything in Gunfighter II is a shade of brown. Not in the way that people talk about PS3 FPS games. I really mean it. It's really difficult to pick out distant enemies, and the game is chock-full of them. And there's innocent victims to avoid too, looking much the same as the criminals. The game really could have used a few Roy Rogers-types. There isn't a single sequin behind all the dust.

Animation quality runs on a scale from charmingly amateurish to concerningly malfunctional. Shoot an enemy multiple times, and they'll shift instantly between poses like you're flicking through Smash Bros trophies. There's even a handful of in-engine cutscenes through the campaign, and it's very funny when they attempt to do a cool close-up on these WWF Smackdown background models.

Enemy hitboxes are some of the fussiest I've ever encountered in a lightgun game. You may argue that I'm not as good a shot as I might like to think, but each trigger pull comes with an on-screen bulletmark, and a ton of them landed right on these guys' cuntnuts. Take my advice and always aim for the torso. The game doesn't always recognise those shots either, but it's by far the most reliable strategy.

Oh, and the audio's pretty crap. The soundtrack's full of short loops that likely came from an archive of stock music. They cheaped out on this one, making a 2003 PS2 game on CD, and I don't think they were even pushing the limits of the 700mb that offers.

The menus are atrociously designed, and my trusty G-Con 2 even seemed to lose connection during one level, but given the state of the disc I bought, I'm giving the game the benefit of the doubt on those points.

You can do a decent lightgun game on a tight budget. Cunning Developments' Endgame was developed under remarkably similar conditions, with remarkably similar intentions, and it's fucking miles better than this. Nothing special, obviously, but I saw that game in Tesco's for a tenner, and if my memory serves me, this was at least double the price at launch. I guess that goes to show why those guys were brought on to do Metroid Prime Pinball, while Rebellion were still stuck in the dirt, doing PSP versions of Gun and From Russia with Love. (Mind you, their version of Miami Vice was shockingly decent.)

You're never going to play this, and I never would have either, but it was one of the last three PS2 lightgun games on my list, and I found a £7 copy on an otherwise fruitless trip into town. I do not have any immediate desire to play either Resident Evil Survivor 2: Code Veronica, or Cocoto Funfair, but I can see that hunger on the horizon, and my bounty list is getting mighty short.

I'm awarding this one an extra half-star because the horses don't take damage when you shoot them. I just hope the travelling surgeon doesn't get too cross with me when they discover how much careless lead I put into them.