The M.A.C.S. were designed by the Military to train soldiers in bootcamp back when the Super Nintendo was in its heyday. The gun was essentially a real M16 (actually a Jäger AP 74 – a M16A2 clone), only stripped down and modified to work with a specially designed game cartridge. The gun itself is far more accurate than the Super Scope and has an authentic weight and feel. It still has sights for aiming, and the light sensor is within the barrel.
Players/soldiers would have had to be about seven feet back from a 13 inch TV, simulating real life distance . As for the game itself, it consists of nine levels and aims to help a soldier with their postioning, aiming, and breathing skills.
The carts are generic American SNES carts, with a sticker giving the simulator title and version number. There are three differnt versions of the cartridges, and it’s been suggested that there are roughly 600 of each produced.
- MACS Multipurpose Arcade Simulator version 1.1e
- MACS Moving Target Simulator
- MACS Basic Rifle Marksmanship Program Version 1994.0
The program was developed by Sculptured Software and can’t be played with a regulal controller, but one needs to be hooked into port two so you can access some parts of the program.
Given the military use, I can’t imagine many of these made it out into the civilian world. We had a bunch of these hit the market a few years ago as one person got their hands on a several, but there’s still only a handful that have popped up for sale.
The gun is currently up for auction and is just shy of $1000 with two days to go. The cartridge is currently up to $405.00.
