I'm being sucked into another SHMUP.
I've always been a firm believer that part of the arcade experience that was left in the arcade, this was when the smoke-stained dimly glowing dinosaurs made the long march into the home thanks to the likes of Playstation, that the absence of ten-pence or indeed one-pound riding on a game, meant the game lost something.
That hook of one-more-go was gone. You tried, in my opinion, a little bit harder when death meant 33% of your weekly income went with it. It was also in the arcade makers vested interest to kill you as quickly as possible. The last thing Taito, or indeed any arcade maker wanted, was some show-off finishing the game on a single credit. That was bad for business.
You wanted to save money, while playing the game, the arcade vendor wanted you to spend money, while playing the game. So it all hinged on the game. Too hard and the customer was being robbed, too easy and the vendor lost revenue. So the first thing, the critical thing, was game-play.
That's all well and good, but what makes you put your money in the first place? Well, the spectacle of the machine. Easy during the days of Space invaders in the 1970s, relatively of cause, the machine itself was the marvel in those days, as the number of machine increased, and they pushed harder to grab your attention, it became more difficult. Eventually, the graphics had to have that WOW factor. Fewer people were going to shove fifty-pence into a dog-ugly game.
Finally, there is the experience. You can have great game play, you can have wow graphics and that will give you a great game, but if you can tie-in an epic experience, and then blend that with a particular cultural feel of the time, then your arcade game will conquer the world. It will be a legend.
That was until Playstation. A console where all the mighty power of the arcade, met with people who had never shoved more money than was sensible into a machine, while standing for hours in a smoke filled dingy-den. They didn't like dying in games. They measured value in terms of length of completion, which is marked against their initial capital expenditure and the spectacle became the all important.
It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a different thing. After all, this model gave us games like Gears of War, Shadow of Colossus and Tomb Raider. Eventually however, today, it became the all conquering model.
So it's good that we can go back. Back to the likes of Raystorm. A game that reminds you of those feelings you had in the arcade.
Raystorm is a classic arcade machine. It's money stealing heritage is only a feint reminder of what perhaps the original arcade was capable of. It's hand-cuffed so to speak but it still plays the credit-game to extent by limiting the number of credits, that while isn't quite the same, it does force you to keep one-eye on the credit count.
The graphics are amazing. It's all in 3D, the engine throws the player around, they are luxurious and a pleasure to watch. It's like watching a a truly beautiful woman walk past, you simply have to look. I'm not being sexist - i'm just being truthful. Whatever it is, that feeling you get from looking at a Supercar or Supermodel or Supergraphics, that feeling of looking at something truly wonderful that gently lifts your heart - Raystorm has it.
Then there is the experience. There was a question raised recently 'Where are all the Japanese games?' I don't want to bash or slate American and European games, they have a look and feel, that when done well is second to none, but my heart will always belong to Japanese style 3D graphics. And this game is very-very 1990s Japanese. It's like Macross, meets Gundam, meets Anime, meets every beautiful cliche in video game that country has ever given us. From plunging across mechanised cities, down through valleys, across oceans and into deep space.
It's one hell of an experience. It's one hell of game. It's one hell of a time thief.
I really like this game. It's not as good as Einhander or R-Type Delta in many respects, but in the sense of it capturing the feel and look of the mid-nineties arcade in the home, it's actually a lot better.
I'm in just in awe of it.
3DOkid.
