Action Hero (also known as Johnny Nero: Action Hero) is a light gun game developed by Play Mechanix and published by Innovative Concepts in Entertaiment (ICE). It was released exclusively for arcades on September 14, 2004. Crave Entertaiment was planned to port the game to PC and PlayStation 2 for 2006 release, and Wii for 2007 release.
Premise[]
In Action Hero, the player takes on the persona of Johnathan "Johnny" Nero. Johnny is a comic book hero that plays in three very different 3-dimensional worlds:
- Space Wars - An evil alien empire is at war with the human race. Johnathan "Johnny" Nero is all that stands between them and our total annihilation.
- Curse of The Mummy King - Johnny battles hordes of Egyptian evil enemies and an ancient Pharaoh to recover the priceless Jewel of Amon-Ra.
- Ghost Town - Johnny is a gun-for-hire paid to clean out the evil sheriff and his gun slinging hordes of undead.
Gameplay[]
The ports were planned to have similar gameplay to the arcade version. The game has two modes. The "Standard" mode allows one or two players to each fire a lightgun, and the "Guns of Fury" mode, which allows one player to fire both lightguns simultaneously. The player must shoot as many enemies on the screen in fast succession. A circle indicator shows enemies that on the verge of making a shot that will damage Nero. There are health pick-ups to restore lost vitality as well as additional weapons with temporary but better firepower. Shooting the lightgun off screen reloads the ammunition. There are friendly NPCs that the player must avoid shooting. The player will have to face sub-bosses and end-bosses throughout the stages, which must be damaged quickly before they charge up their attacks. In between stages, the player will have bonus rounds requiring a number of targets to be shot in a limited time. The ports were planned to have more content not found in the arcade version, including a "Becoming Action Hero" training mode, one additional comic set in Hong Kong (known as Hard Boilin', where Johnny planned to dressed up as Inspector "Tequila" Yuen Ho-yan from the 1992 film Hard Boiled), and more power-ups (such as a machine gun). The PC port was planned to have a mouse support, while the PlayStation 2 port was planned to have a GunCon 2 support, and the Wii port was planned to have motion controls via the Wii Remote.
Why These Ports Were Cancelled[]
- The arcade version of the game ran on RightHand Technologies' VP101 arcade system. A suicide battery (which prevents piracy) on the game board was discovered by the game's owners, which however not only the game dies when the battery dies, but also prevented the game from porting to home consoles.
Results[]
- Crave Entertaiment cancelled these ports for PC, PlayStation 2, and Wii.
- Crave Entertaiment released a PC port of the original Big Buck Hunter arcade game as well as the Wii port of Big Buck Hunter Pro.