The NES Zapper is best known as the light-gun used to play Duck Hunt on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The Zapper came in both a bright orange coloration, as well as a gray and red option that matched the system. Those would normally be easy to tell from a real gun, but a man reportedly painted the ’80s peripheral black and used it to commit a robbery at a Kwik Stop convenience store in York, South Carolina. According to the York County Sheriff’s office, 25-year-old David Joseph Dalesandro took around $300 from a clerk using the Zapper in a robbery that took place on May 30th. Dalesandro was subsequently arrested.
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Naturally, the use of the Zapper drew a lot of interest from Nintendo fans, and the York County Sheriff’s office shared an image of the painted peripheral on its Twitter account as a result. An image can be found in the Tweet embedded below.
More than 35 years after its release, the Zapper remains one of the most iconic items from the NES era. In addition to being used for Duck Hunt, the peripheral was compatible with several other games, including Hogan’s Alley, Wild Gunman, Operation Wolf, and more. The Zapper was actually made specifically for Wild Gunman, but it’s most commonly associated with Duck Hunt, and is widely referred to as the “Duck Hunt gun.”
Nintendo has offered other light-gun options through the years, but the Zapper remains the most iconic. There are several possible reasons for this, but its presence in other media has likely helped. In the ’80s animated series Captain N: The Game Master, the show’s titular character used an NES Zapper to defeat his foes. These days, the peripheral continues to live on thanks to the Splatoon series. The N-Zap ’85 and N-Zap ’89 are modeled after the gray and orange Zapper options respectively, and have appeared in all three Splatoon games. Splatoon 2 also introduced a third option, the N-Zap ’83, which is colored to resemble the Japanese Famicom system.
Are you surprised someone used an NES Zapper in a robbery? Which version of the peripheral did you have? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!
