Well, God help us, there is a sequel. It’s called NRA
Practice Range. I don’t know if
it is available for more than the iPhone, but there you go.
First the good news. It’s
free. You don’t have to pay a single red
cent to own this thing, although you will have to pay money to unlock additional
guns (you start with three).
Now the bad news. It’s overpriced. Get it? Because it’s free?
Look I am not hostile to the
NRA. And at first blush this sounded
like something that would be okay for a free app. But no, this is so bad, I am deleting it the
moment I am done with this review. It’s literally
not worth the space on your device.
.PNG)
The basic set up is very
simple. You can shoot at an indoor
range, and outdoor range and skeet shooting. The indoor range is now moderately famous
because you shoot targets that look like this (see left).
That is from the indoor range,
and idiot Think
Progress claimed these were coffin-shaped targets. I don’t know if the author, Annie-Rose
Stasser is ignorant, or she just knows her audience is ignorant, but here’s a
hint: coffins don’t actually look like that.
They’re just targets, done in
a vaguely human fashion because you are practicing to defend yourself.
By the way, as an aside, in the
comments to this Think Regress article, they were deeply horrified and offended
by the idea. Then they launched into
murder fantasies (while accusing the NRA of hypocrisy, no less). One wrote:
Wonder how hard it
would be to whip up a game with Wayne LaPierre, David Keene, and Ted Nugent's
faces on the targets?
Another:
How about every
right wing leader? I know it would make me feel a lot better about Congress if
I could play a video game where Republican Congressmen are the targets.
/sarcasm
And another:
Don't forget to add
Grover Norquist!
Another:
how about charging
into one of their meetings and gunning down anyone who gets in their way see how
they like it. TIME TO STOP THE NRA.
And finally some logic:
There you go!
Cardboard targets = sinister, shooting at images of real people = desirable.
Typical guncontrol extremist thinking.
And humor:
Honestly, I think
they look more like cocktail shakers. This is absolutely irresponsible, as it
encourages shooting guns while drunk on cosmos. I can't believe that the NRA
would so thoughtlessly incorporate unsafe practices into a phone app.
And other random silliness:
The second amendment
has not kept pace with gun technology. The second amendment was written when we
had muskets which take 15 seconds to reload. You want your second amendment
rights? Ok...you can have them. You are allowed to own as many muskets as you would
like. Go for it.
This comment was written with a
quill pen of course.
Moving on. So the indoor range is simply a bunch of
these things pop up in seemingly random places.
I mean they don’t move up, or realistically pop out of the floor. They just blink into existence, without so
much as a *poof* to let you know they are there and then after some time they
disappear. And the goal is to hit as
many of them as possible. Just hit them,
mind you. There is no apparently scoring
for accuracy that I could see.
The controls meanwhile, are
rough. You have two options. The first is a gyroscope tilt control set
up. Which works really well for aiming,
but then when you go to shoot, you have to kind of tap the screen and it only
intermittently realizes you are trying to shoot. The other option is to use a virtual analog stick and fire button. In this case the
trigger works better but the stick is just not responsive.
.PNG)
Of course it doesn’t really become a problem until you reach
the Outdoor Range. Here’s a picture of
that (right).
That target you see basically
pops out of the ground, goes up and then comes down. And it does it really fast. As in faster than you can cope with. If you use the gyroscope, you’re going to go
nuts with the hinky trigger because it will not shoot when you need it to and
timing is vital. And the analog stick
is just hopelessly slow.
I fared better with the skeet
shooting, and it was the closest to actually being fun. But it wasn’t worth it. And I miss the Duck Hunt dog.
Come to think of it, Nintendo
should totally make Duck Hunt into an app.
Use the gyro as the movement and then a simple trigger. That might be a lot of fun.
Back to this game, each range
allows for three different guns, one of which is free and the other two which
is $0.99. But honestly I don’t see
nearly enough fun here to justify that.
It also serves as a vehicle to
promote the NRA itself. During the
loading screens (and there are a lot of those—this is a slow app) it will give
you either NRA facts or gun safety tips.
And of course the front page has links to information about the NRA, gun
safety training classes, etc. They hope to
recruit people with this.
Of course if they wanted to do
that, they should have done a much better job with the app. Simply awful.
But if they fix the controls and
stop it from being so “crashy,” it will be just okay. Of course if you want a better “pointless
shooting” app, you could try Zombie
Gunship, where you shoot zombies from a plane. It’s a buck today, but it was free for me,
with all kinds of things like progression and in-game goodies. If you are looking for a little dumb fun while waiting at the pharmacy counter, or something like that, you could do much worse.
P.S.: Over in the App store the
reviews sadly are about 99% based on what you think of the NRA. Which I guess isn’t so bad with a free app,
but it is annoying.
---------------------------------------
My wife and I have lost our jobs
due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an
attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up
to ten years. I know that claim sounds
fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these
claims using documentary and video evidence.
If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin
accountable, please hit the Blogger’s Defense Team button on the right. And thank you.
Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing,
mostly for snark and site updates. And
you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent
History here.
And you can read a little more about my novel, here.
---------------------------------------
Disclaimer:
I have accused some people,
particularly Brett Kimberlin, of
reprehensible conduct. In some cases, the conduct is even
criminal. In all cases, the only justice I want is through the
appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system. I do not want to see vigilante violence
against any person or any threat of such violence. This kind of conduct is not only morally
wrong, but it is counter-productive.
In the particular case of Brett
Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him. Do not call him. Do not write him a letter. Do not write him an email. Do not text-message him. Do not engage in any kind of directed
communication. I say this in part
because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want
that to happen to him.
And for that matter, don’t go on
his property. Don’t sneak around and try
to photograph him. Frankly try not to
even be within his field of vision. Your
behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to
mention trespass and other concerns).
And do not contact his
organizations, either. And most of all, leave his family alone.
The only exception to all that is
that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with
contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might
report. And even then if he tells you to
stop contacting him, obey that request. That
this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that
a person asks you to stop and you refuse.
And let me say something
else. In my heart of hearts, I don’t
believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above. But if any of you have, stop it, and if you
haven’t don’t start.
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