Crossbow was released by Exidy in 1983 as a light-gun game inspired by adventure shows about crossbow-wielding survivors in the wild facing wildlife and raiders. Using a light gun shaped like a crossbow, the player defends a pair of characters — a man and his dog — against waves of attackers, snakes, bears, and other dangers appearing across a set of static forest and mountain scenes.
Unlike other light-gun games, Crossbow required the player to protect vulnerable on-screen characters rather than just themselves, which added tension — one missed shot could mean the instant death of the protected character and the end of the game, regardless of how many lives the player had left. The combination of quick reflexes and the need to track multiple targets at once made for a more demanding experience than the simpler single-target light-gun shooters of the time, and players had to split their attention between both protected characters at once.
The game later got home versions for the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, and other systems, though without the original light gun it lost some of its charm and tension, since a joystick-controlled reticle could never match the precision of an actual pistol or the speed of aiming accurately between distant targets. Even so, Crossbow remains an interesting reminder of the early experiments with gun-based controllers in eighties arcade halls.
Why play it: Crossbow offers an unusual light-gun concept where the player defends not themselves, but a pair of defenseless characters on screen.
Game 100 of 258 for Arcade
