The rail shooter revolution, part 1 - Originally published on 1UP - October 9, 2011

Reminiscing about Star Blade the other day made me think about other games in the genre, not solely the space shooters, but the arcade games that made an impact and were truly memorable experiences. When I was going through my notes on Star Blade I thought about what element the best arcade shooters had in common. Then I thought about what console games provided an equally memorable experience. What did these games have in common? What did they offer that was unique among them? Which were the groundbreaking titles and which were the trendsetters? How did the arcade innovate when home consoles were catching up in the graphics department?

We should begin with the other titles in the space shooter department that, like Star Blade, were cutting edge experiences. One of the earliest polygon shooters was Silpheed for the PC released in 1986 this Sega title as revolutionary graphics for what was traditionally called a "Shoot-em Up" or SHMUP for short. These types of games were some of the oldest types of arcade games and included the classic titles Galaga, Space Invaders and Gradius. The original Silpheed was unlike these titles because it exploited the processing power of home PC's to deliver vector graphics and polygons into the home. None of the aforementioned classic SHMUPS were even built using that technology.

Games became more robust and visually stimulating as arcade technology found its way home in the guise of processors used in PC's and consoles. Silpheed would actually enjoy a revival of sorts exploiting the processing power of 16-bit engines and the amazing storage capacity of CD's. Silpheed for the Sega CD and add-on to the Genesis, was released in 1993. The game was a SHMUP that rivaled the best of the early polygon titles in the arcade. The graphics were cutting edge and lauded for the diversity of locations and difficulty factor. The game was so well made that it could have been considered a contemporary title to Star Blade.

In fact 1993 was a dramatic change in the perception of home consoles bringing arcade-quality graphics home. Silpheed was popular when released but it did not achieve the level of success that another space shooter received that same year. The Super Nintendo had an exclusive polygon-based shooter titled Star Fox that completely caught gamers off guard. Instead of playing through a side-scrolling SHMUP as they were used to, gamers were actually flying through 3D space in 3D ships. The blocky graphics were overlooked as the tight control scheme, fun character designs and massive boss battles were unlike anything else available at home.

One of the interesting things about Star Fox was that it combined the polygons with sprites on the graphics engine. Nintendo did not rely exclusively on polygons to create the game. Sprites, or raster art made up images for the game characters as well as some of the background graphics as well. The use of sprites allowed the game to have certain color and effects, like an atmosphere on an alien world or cannonballs heading right towards the player. Silpheed featured similar techniques for backgrounds. These visuals could not have been achieved by relying exclusively on polygon technology.

Aside of the obvious aesthetic draw that a sprite or raster art had over early polygon games, these consoles simply did not have the processing power to render polygons for every detail. Sprites accepted more colors than polygons at the time and they could even be scalable. In oder to achieve the illusion of movement and depth sprites were layered in an overlapping method and then rotated or scaled by the game engine. This technique was used to create pseudo-3D effects in both arcade and console titles.

One of the earliest and most recognized uses of sprites that overlapped and scaled to create 3D object was the arcade hit Space Harrier. Released by Sega in 1985 it was revolutionary for the illusion that the main character was flying forward through the world in three-dimensions. The sprites had a limited color palette and looked very blocky as they passed underneath the main character. As processors got more powerful and storage got more robust the sprite layering technique had improved as well. One of Sega's latter titles, Thunderblade (released in 1987) featured the illusion of depth and movement through top-down and behind-the-back camera perspectives.

The polygons remained blocky but scaled slightly better than in previous titles. Through the mid 1980's and into the early 1990's this technique was employed to create the illusion of 3D objects on 2D engines.

The thing that all of the aforementioned games shared in common was the gameplay. All of the titles, whether they were set in space, on the ground or in the air, or whether they were in first-person, top-down or third person perspective used a similar game technique. The games advanced on a pre-determined path. They gave players the illusion of freedom, allowing them to move almost any direction across the screen. By allowing gamers the slightest bit of freedom the developers could create the illusion that they were actually traveling to exotic locations. Gamers could enjoy the virtual landscapes that they were taken through without having to actually pilot themselves there.

The term "Rail Shooter" was created to describe these types of games. Star Blade was an example of a rail shooter set in space. The player acted as the gunner while an unseen pilot whisked them throughout the galaxy. The rail shooter became a standard in the arcade. Sega seemed to be among the best developer for these types of games with Namco punctuating some exceptional experiences as well. As graphics technology improved on consoles new things would have to be tried out to keep audiences coming back to the arcades. The rail shooter found an audience in the mid 1990's and hit a creative peak in the late 1990's. After a slow start in the early 2K's it recently found some renewed interest at the end of the decade thanks to emerging technologies.

Creatively speaking the rail shooter found its niche in the arcade by exploiting elements that would be next-to-impossible to recreate at home. In 1991 Sega released a game called Rail Chase. This was a sit-down game cast players in the role of an adventurer and his female partner riding inside of a runaway mine cart. It was unabashedly a rip off of the famous chase scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The duo were being chased by thugs in turbans along a long and twisting course. Players could defend themselves and even throw switches and change paths by shooting a machine gun at targets. The game used scaling sprites to create the illusion of 3D. To add an extra layer of excitement the seats on the cabinet were set on top of hydraulics that dipped and bumped in time with the scenes on the screen. The last noteworthy Sega rail shooting game that was sprite-based and used the moving seats was Jurassic Park, released in 1994.

Just a short year later Sega and Namco would be working almost exclusively on polygon titles. Sega's first foray into a polygon light gun game was Virtua Cop, released in 1994 and Namco's was Time Crisis, released in 1995. Both games used the shooter on rails formula, only that a handheld light gun was used to target enemies rather than a space ship. Light gun games have an equally long and storied history in the arcade but I will not be spending too much time talking about that genre here. I would like to emphasize however the idea that the light gun arcade shooter helped shape the dramatic scope and scale covered in the rail shooter.

In 1995 Sega created Rail Chase 2. This time the scalable pixels were completely replaced by polygons. The hydraulic seats returned, pitching gamers side to side and tilting them in all sorts of directions as the mine cart found itself perpetually rolling through obstacles. The levels were lavishly themed environments created with plenty of imagination.

The term rail shooter could never seem more appropriate than with the Rail Chase series. Sega did not limit the genre by keeping the entire game on railroad tracks. The mine cart often found itself being thrown down chutes, bouncing through caves, floating down rivers and even sliding over frozen lakes. It had become the perfect, if improbable, vehicle. Sega had a luxury that could never be afforded any theme park. They had created an interactive experience with motion through a series of scenarios, boss battles and locations that did not require the construction of multi-million dollar attractions. They could even broaden the experience by creating alternate paths that players could take just by shooting a switch. This increased the replay value among gamers and gave arcade owners a reason to celebrate. What the genre had needed previously was an engine capable of rendering 3D visuals to go along with the moving seats. The new polygon powerhouses did just that.

Sega continued to push the limits of arcade cabinet design along with the advances in graphics technologies. Force feedback had made game control more interactive. Started with racing games and then applied to flight sims, force feedback controls helped create a new dimension of immersion for players as well. Past a certain point the games were becoming less arcade experiences and more amusement park ones. Seats that moved and rumbled were the start for Sega, with the culmination of movement technology appearing in the R-360. The cabinet allowed a full 360 degrees of movement and could even rotate the player on multiple axis, completely flipping them upside down if they wanted to. Due to size and cost restrictions very few players actually got a chance to see, let alone try the flight sims G-LOC and After Burner on this cabinet. Sega was not deterred from turning their games into more interactive experiences through experimentation. They could achieve a memorable experience with creative level design and by exploring rich themes on every subsequent title.

The last generation of sprite-based rail shooters allowed for some very detailed graphics. Near the end of sprite-based development the engines could support large sprites with hundreds of colors on the figures. When they scaled in size the pixelation was negligible. A few years after the first Jurassic Park game, and following on the footsteps of Rail Chase 2, Sega revisited the franchise with the Lost World. The sprite-based dinosaurs and island were replaced with polygon models. The new dinosaurs were more detailed that even the last generation and the experience was far more intense to players. To increase the reaction among players Sega had created a deluxe cabinet that shrouded the players inside a canopy, making them feel more isolated on the island. Add in seats that vibrated and a loud surround sound system and the experience was as memorable as any motion arcade title that Sega had worked on. This game from 1997 was so well produced it could still be found in arcades, movie theaters and restaurants more than a decade later.

Rolling back the clock a few years we would see that the development of rail shooters from Sega extended to home consoles. We shall explore these titles and connect them back to the arcade in the next blog. If you had a favorite rail shooter, or remember any of the titles mentioned above then I'd like to know about it. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The Namco Chronicles, part 4...

The arcade industry was going through some changes during the early part of the ‘90s. Consoles from Nintendo, Sega and even NEC had grown tremendously over the ‘80s and had syphoned away a large number of arcade fans. In order to stay ahead of the curve the publishers had to really push what arcade games were capable of. They had to have experiences that were superior to anything available at home. By focusing on the development of 3D titles the big publishers like Namco and Sega could guarantee that they would remain at the forefront of gaming and technology.

A decade after Namco had released Galaga they had taken their first tentative steps into 3D space shooters. Solvalou was a rarely seen arcade game in the US. It played like a first-person Xevious. The title from 1991 featured many of the similar locations, enemies and music that were in the groundbreaking SHMUP. Part of the reason I enjoyed the arcade title had less to do with the game itself and more with the deluxe sit down cabinet. The Japanese developers used more of a mecha or anime influence on the cabinet design, molding the seat and frame to appear more like a cockpit. To young gamers it was far more immersive than some pressboard covered in vinyl stickers. One of the biggest hurdles that Namco had to overcome was the storage capacity for games. ROMs were expensive to manufacture, CDs did not store much data and DVD technology had not yet caught up with the industry. The company relied on LaserDisks for several of their early 3D entries like Solvalou.

The 3D title was a nice change of pace to the graphics and gameplay that had been featured earlier in the arcade. Granted, there were earlier PC flight simulators that were ported over to the arcade during the 3D gold rush, but they weren’t games. Or to be more correct they didn’t play like games. Solvalou was the first genuine attempt at moving the SHMUP into 3D. Its diversity of locations, from flying over an alien stronghold to battling them in the farthest reaches of space was a different experience in 3D. The enemy types and high pace gameplay did a good job at capturing the essence of Xevious. Moreover it made the sensation of piloting a space ship somewhat believable.

At the same time Solvalou was in the arcades Sega was also cutting their teeth on 3D technology. They had yet to release their revolutionary 3D racing games. Namco had already begun pushing the industry in that direction in the late ‘80s thanks to Winning Run. The early 3D Namco racing game failed to make a big splash in the arcade but Solvalou got gamers genuinely excited in the space shooter genre all over again. Sega figured out a way to bring the 3D experience home using their Sega CD addition to the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. The storage capacity that the CD offered over the cartridge was tremendous. Yet the console was not powerful enough to render massive environments on the fly as well as opponents to shoot down.

Developer Game Arts found a happy medium. They created limited scale ships and opponents and superimposed them over video playback of polygon environments. It was seamless and looked absolutely stunning for that generation of games. Silpheed was the name of the Game Arts 1993 sleeper-hit. Sega could genuinely claim to have brought the arcade experience home with that shooter. The company had introduced players to a world that looked as robust as the best AAA arcade SHMUP to date. The ship designs were amazing, the levels memorable and the gameplay challenging but balanced. Even small details like the layout of the scoreboard, ship energy meter all looked futuristic. The game integrated cut scenes and full audio in with a soundtrack that helped pull the gamer into the experience. This was the secret to all great games. Players could get lost in the best titles and feel connected to the worlds that the developers had spent months if not years crafting.

There was a downside to being on the cutting edge of technology. The Sega Genesis was a popular console but not every owner was willing to purchase the Sega CD attachment. It doubled the price of the console and with that money gamers could instead buy a Super Nintendo. The rival publisher had a game out called Star Fox at the same time. It was considered one of the finest science fiction shooters ever created. The engineers at Nintendo managed to squeeze every ounce of processing power out of the console and cram the SNES cartridge with a memorable team of characters, environments and bosses. Of course the small percentage of gamers that had both consoles could testify as to how much more robust Silpheed was. Unfortunately for them Nintendo had the fortune of selling far more units and influencing a generation of players into thinking that StarFox was the definitive next generation console shooter.

Sega managed to keep a cult-like following from gamers the world over. They never let the publisher forget that there was still an audience very much in love with the world that they had seen previously. This was thanks in part to the release that Silpheed got for the PC and the sequel that Game Arts developed for the Playstation 2. Heavyweight SHMUP developer Treasure helped co-develop the sequel Silpheed: The Lost Planet. Released in 2000 the game took advantage of everything the newest console offered. The polygons were now textured and all sorts of lighting and environmental effects could be rendered on the fly. Sadly little else was seen on the series after the title was released. Sega had “lost” the console wars and cancelled all future console developments after the Dreamcast. Veteran gamers had lost all hope that the company would ever revisit the IP.

In 2006 Square Enix released a game called Project Sylpheed: Arc of Deception. The game played more like a flight simulator than a SHMUP. This was not necessarily a bad thing. The change in formats helped add a whole new way to appreciate the franchise. It turned out that Sega had partnered with the studio that was best known for their Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts releases. The fingerprints of Square Enix were all over the title. Project Sylpheed focused tremendously on over-the-top character designs and their interpersonal relationships, adding lengthy cut scenes and tons of dialogue where once before there was only action. The studio had done similar things to the fighting, role playing and brawler genres. The Xbox 360 exclusive was well received despite the focus on decidedly Japanese characters and convoluted game plots. Sadly little else followed the title.

To be fair however there was another notable 3D SHMUP released before Solvalou. Raiden by Taito was a title from 1990. It was also built with a polygon engine instead of a sprite-based one. Raiden was based on the familiar top-down, vertical view rather than in Solvalou’s first person perspective. The diversity of locations, from flying over an alien stronghold to battling them in the farthest reaches of space was a completely different experience when presented from the pilot’s perspective. The enemy types and high pace gameplay of Solvalou did a good job at capturing the essence of Xevious. Moreover it made the sensation of piloting a space ship somewhat believable. Namco made a version of a traditional shooter built on polygon technology as well. Nebulas Ray from 1994 was the sorely under-appreciated arcade gem that was the "missing link" from the studio.

The shifting perspective helped add an additional layer of depth especially when combined with the new polygon ship models. Sharp-eyed players could actually see the enemy types were pulled from Galaxian, Xevious and Starblade continuity. In many instances these were some of the first 3D models of the classic sprite-based ships. The game actually introduced an entirely new threat to humanity. An evil alien menace known as the "Master Force" was threatening to invade the planet of Austral. Despite the bump in the graphics department the fans of the classic UGSF SHMUPS did not enjoy Nebulas Ray as much as its predecessors.

It played differently than any other Namco gem. The play area actually spread out further than one screen on either side. When players reached the edge of the screen it would scroll sideways and allow players to enjoy another third screen's worth of playable area. This was not bad planning per-say but audiences didn't know if they were missing secrets or areas that were potentially worth more points just outside of the standard viewable area. Because of this reason very few SHMUP and even Bullet Hell games never followed that school of design. Instead they tried to fit all of the action and playable area on one screen. The designers learned from their mistakes and didn't try to repeat any of the things they tried out in Nebulas Ray. It was the following release from Namco that caught the attention of gamers.

Xevious 3D/G+ was released in the Arcade in 1995 and ported to the Playstation in 1996. The game had a similar perspective to Raiden, in that it was not exactly top-down but set just a few degrees behind the player so that gamers could see more of the foreground in the distance. The game started very much like the classic Xevious, featuring updated remixes of the classic songs as well. The enemy types and locations were exactly as audiences had remembered from the ‘80s hit. Yet very quickly things began to change as entirely new types of enemies began to run and fly all over the screen in full 3D. Players were taken to all sorts of new locations in the shooter, broadening the experience that they thought they knew from the previous games. The adherence to the classic gameplay with improved graphics helped make the game a bigger hit when compared to Nebular Ray.

Namco had a favorable reputation in gaming community because they remained true to their roots. They managed to create classic arcade experiences while incorporating newer technology but little by little it slipped away. Sega had also lost the presence that they had once carried. They let their internal teams fall into disarray or leave the company. The publisher did not allow their developers to experiment with new gaming experiences and instead focused their resources on half-hearted sequels. The majority of the Sega games seemed to be handled by outside developers now. They lacked the quality of the original titles and as such many fans were dismayed with every new announcement. After turning Zaxxon into a Temple Run clone in honor of its 30th anniversary it was for the best that Sega did nothing for the 20th anniversary of Silpheed.

The same observations could be made of Namco and their biggest titles. Many had also hit the 20th, 25th and 30th anniversaries in recent years but little was done to show for that except for the occasional mobile release. The studio had a difficult time making their classic games relevant again. Both studios had earned their followings in the ‘80s and ‘90s and then seemed to lose the connection with them at the turn of the millennium. Perhaps the problem for the studios was that they peaked too soon. The companies had shown an entire generation that video games were the most important form of entertainment in the past century. They had a hard time maintaining that momentum on home consoles. The best experiences however could never be recreated at home. One of the greatest space shooters ever released was missed by a large majority of game players because of the consoles. The next blog looks at this title. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!