An exceptionally rare lightgun shooter from Konami has just been preserved and made playable online, as revealed in a new video from the arcade YouTube VideoGameEsoterica.
Cooper's 9 is a comic book-inspired arcade game created by the London-based studio Gamewax (which was also the studio behind the equally obscure lightgun shooter Akuma Mortis Immortal), focusing on two trained killers (Good Boy and Wild Cat) who attempt to quit their jobs as international assassins only to find themselves in a war against their former boss.
The game features a pretty outlandish slapstick presentation, including ridiculous enemies, comedy sound effects, and bizarre animations, but was only ever given an extremely limited release by Konami in a small number of arcades back in 2005, severely limiting its reach.
As a result, has become something of a legend among arcade collectors, with very few people having heard about it and even fewer having gotten the chance to play it for themselves.
This explains why a group of arcade fans from across multiple countries (and two different continents) recently came together to try and make it more widely available, with the goal essentially being to make it playable in Teknoparrot and save the title "from the brink of extinction".
According to VideoGameEsoterica, the preservation effort was the result of a combined effort from various groups and was coordinated out by a member of his Discord channel called RandomAccessGamer, alongside others such as the Teknoparrot Team, the arcade repair person Andy Geezer, and an individual named Ferdinando (whose last name was not shared).
You can find out more about the game here.