House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn Gameplay Footage

Time Crisis 5 Stages 4-6

So a long while ago I blogged about the latest iteration in the famous rail shooting series Time Crisis 5, here's a reminder

http://identitygaming.blogspot.jp/2015/09/time-crisis-5.html

One thing that I said that pissed me off about this game was the fact it wasn't finished and cost twice as much as every other game in the arcade.  Well, I'm not sure when it was released but the final 3 stages were added AND the game got a price drop to the standard 100 yen per play.

The game itself is just standard rail shooter fair and the new dual pedal system to peek out from 2 different angles is fun albeit a little tiring.  For example there's a cool boss fight where an NPC ally is fighting with the enemy in close quarters and you have to use the two pedals to change your vantage point on their battle and hit the enemy rather than your ally.  There's not MUCH penalty for hitting the guy other than minus score but I suppose if you're doing a run of the game where you are trying to get a high score then this scene would be extremely challenging.  There's also a sniping section where you have to kill dudes before they set off an alert which was pretty fun so the game does a fair bit to mix things up.

The other cool thing is that the game saves you progress via the Sega Aime IC Card so if you had already finished stages 1-3 in a previous session like I had done, you could opt to start right from stage 4 and not have to waste your credits battling through parts of the game you had already played through.  One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post on this game is that the game also has achievements in the form of Medals that will be displayed when you finish a run.  If you have the card scanned then these achievements will carry over to all playthroughs so there is a way to sort of 100% Time Crisis 5.

I've been playing these sort of games since I was a very young child and its nice to see that even now they are still doing well and companies are still making them.  If you ever have a  chance to try Time Crisis 5 I'd fully recommend it but don't be too sad if you can't get a go on it because TC2 is still the best one.

Time Crisis 5

Holy crap this series is STILL going?!  I thought the genre of light gun based rail shooters had gone almost completely out of fashion with the exception of a few sit down cabinet games but guess I was fucking wrong.  Granted this appeared in my local arcade quite a while ago but I only just got around to playing it .

Just in case there is anyone stumbling on this blog who has never played or heard of this game, let me give you a quick primer.

Time Crisis is a long running series of rail shooters that has been going since 1995.  Most games in this genre usually just put you on a straight rail and had you fend of a bunch of enemies and not taking damage was based on knowing where they are coming from and picking and choosing the right targets.

Time Crisis was a little different in this regard because the machine (and the later console releases) used a pedal to duck in and out of cover.  That's right motherfuckers, before we had all this 3rd person Gears of War cover based shooting crap, it was done in the arcade with a pedal and a light gun.  However, in order to stop people cheesing out the game by just hiding behind cover and waiting for the opportune moment, each screen had a time limit (of 40 seconds if I remember correctly), meaning that you had to take a few risks if you wanted a chance to survive the timer.

It was an interesting title and the sequels only went on to build on the concept.

Time Crisis 2 and up were essentially the same game but what made them interesting was the multiplayer component.  Usually in these games 2 players would work together on one screen but in Time Crisis each player had their own screen.  This meant that each player was seeing each screen from a different angle and that they could help each other pick off enemies from the other screen.

So that's old school Time Crisis, so how's the new one?  Well it's OK and while it introduces some cool stuff it's kind of short and a little bullshit.

The big new thing with TC5 is a dual pedal system.  Up to now, every Time Crisis has had 1 pedal but this one has an L and R pedal.  All this means is that each character has 2 vantage points per screen from which they can shoot from but using the pedals effectively is paramount to winning some battles and boss fights.  There's also a couple of QTE's and a number of slow motion "shoot the targets" sequences that are used to award bonus points or to take a life off if you fuck up.  It also utilities the Aime/Banana Passport stat cards to track high scores and achievements if you're into that kind of thing.

The game pisses me off a little because it's too short and it cops out at the end with "ANOTHER CHAPTER COMING SOON!".  This wouldn't piss me off it was normal priced but the cost for entry into this thing is fucking 200 yen with 100 more to continue if you die!  Almost every game ever in a game centre is 100 yen per play but this huge fucking thing wants 200!?  There is less content here than most 100 yen rail shooters too so I don't know why the fuck the price is double what it should be.

Still, as much as that pisses me off it's nice to see that the old school stand up rail shooter games are clinging on for dear life in the modern age.  If you get the chance to try it then you absolutely should, but I can't imagine it seeing the light of day in the west because the cabinet is HUGE and the western coin-op scene sucks.

Please let me know if anyone finds one though, especially in the UK!

Transformers: Human Alliance

I'm not a massive fan of Transformers and I never have been.  When I was a child it was something I had a mild interest in because big robots fighting is cool but I was never heavily into it.  However I really hated the movies so I have no idea why I bothered to climb in this giant yellow machine and insert 100 yen but I'm quite glad that I did.

I hear a lot of people slagging off Micheal Bay because all his movies are just explosion montages but if there's anything one of his movies translates well to, it's a arcade rail shooter.  I have no idea what the story is to this game because I would just mash the start key to get to the action and the action is good.

If you have no idea what these theatre cabinets are like inside, they have a big screen with 2 guns in front of it on a pivot.  You sit down in the big seat and move the gun around the screen blasting stuff.  Occasionally the game might ask you to hit the start button for a QTE but these moments are few and far between in most games that use this style of cabinet.

The game play is simple; there's a bunch of Deceptacons on screen and you have to shoot the fuck out of 'em.  When you have shot enough of them, a boss appears and you shoot the fuck out of him until he dies.  The action scenes are cool and it's fun to watch when your Transformer buddy jumps into the action and starts kicking things to death with your covering fire.

The last rail shooter I played for any amount of time in an arcade was Dark Escape 3D and my problem with that game is that there is so much downtime watching dirty corridors as the game attempts to build atmosphere but Transformers is the exact opposite of that.  There is very little downtime from actually shooting things and if you're not shooting things you are watching things explode, it's great.

It has its fair share of bullshit moments that you could never see coming the first time round but I'm not going to dock points for it because that's the nature of these kinds of games, they are out to take as much money as they can.  However the game isn't very long and I beat it on a handful of spare change so it's bullshit factor is actually pretty low compared to a lot of other games in the genre.

I know arcades in the west are mostly dead but if you ever see this game in a cinema or bowling alley, give it a go.  It's a fun way to kill an hour and it's way better than any of those shitty movies.

Arcade Rail Shooters Need A Comeback

This weekend I was hanging out in a few game centres with some friends and while they were off playing the UFO catchers and other assorted nonsense I decided to jump on a couple of rail shooters. 

The first thing I played was Silent Hill arcade which I ended up pumping a few coins into in order to play to completion. 

I like this game quite a bit and it's one of the only Silent Hill spin off games that doesn't piss me off.  It's a solid rail shooter that's fun to play despite being a little slow at times and it's got just the right amount of fankwank.  The final stage is complete BS but then again these games are designed to eat your money so it's to be expected.

After that I jumped on some kind of Transformers rail shooter that was super fun to play, looked amazing and was bombastic as fuck.  The movies suck but I think they work way better as a mindless arcade rail shooter so I don't regret dropping a couple hundred yen into that machine.

The last game I played was Silent Scope: Bone Eater

I've not played a Silent Scope game since the Dreamcast days and boy it sure has changed.  Bone Eater is a 3D futuristic sniping game with an awesome sit down style cabinet and it has a little fan that blows wind in your face as the character jumps around buildings just for that added immersion.  It's tough as nails but good lord is it fun.

I wish there were more of these shooting games.  Back in the day games like House of the Dead and Time Crisis ruled the arcades but now I barely see them any more.  Hopping on one of these either solo or with a friend is one of the most fun experiences ever and it's a shame that they are such a dying breed.

I'll talk about each of these games in much more detail at a later date so watch this space if you want to see me gush about arcade rail shooters.

Typing of the Dead

It may be extremely weird that one of my favorite PC games of all time happens to be a fucking typing tutor, but this game is AWESOME so whatever.

The thing that most typing tutors have in common is that they are really boring.  They feel like your are taking some kind of fucking course and generally speaking it doesn't make you feel motivated and therefore you don't give a shit about your typing skills.  But then came along this game and changed EVERYTHING you thought you knew about typing tutor software.

In case anyone doesn't know what The House of the Dead is, allow me to take a moment to explain. 

Back when Sega was still doing hardware, House of the Dead 2 was one of the big motherfuckers of the rail shooter genre.  Everyone knew and had put at least one credit into one of these damn machines.  They were absolutely everywhere and it was impossible to walk into a cinema or bowling alley without seeing at least one of these games in the establishment.

The Typing of the Dead is exactly the same game as House of the Dead 2, but instead of a light gun you use your keyboard to murder zombies.  Zombies pop up on the screen with a word on their chest and you have to type it before they gnaw your face off.  Typing quickly is key to getting high scores and typing accurately is key to staying alive and trust me, this game doesn't fuck around.

The first couple of stages are extremely easy but after that they throw all sorts of crap at you like stupidly long sentences or words that you may be unfamiliar with the spelling of and shit like that.  However it's the games bosses where it really starts to shine.  Each boss has it's own gimmick so not only do you have to type quickly and accurately, but you have to overcome a challenge while you do it.

For example, the boss on stage 2 opens and closes it's chest and while it's chest is closed the word is greyed out and you can't type.  If you fail to complete the sentence in 3 short bursts then he shoves his spear right into your slow face.  Stage 3 makes this really difficult by making you answer a quiz while the words fly crazily about the screen.  The boss is a hydra looking thing and each head represents one question answer, so with this guy you can type the word perfectly but getting the question wrong will still result in taking a hit.

If you're bad at typing and you don't think you can handle this high octane typing action then fear not because there is a drill mode that will teach you the correct typing method and has many drills for you to practice so that one day you make tackle the horde of zombies in the story mode.

The Typing of the Dead is kind of old and kind of hard to find and it has a few things that are annoying about it.  For example you can't quit the fucking game, I have to alt tab and close it via the task manager every goddamn time.  But if you don't want to deal with all that archaic bullshit then just pop over to steam and get The Typing of the Dead: Overkill off the store. 

That's right, this typing tutor is so fucking good it got a goddamn SEQUEL.  Get on that shit.

The House of the Dead Memories

Today is a slow day, so let me tell you a story about one of the reasons why I love arcade games so much.

A long long time ago, back when I was just a kid and stuff like the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo were the best things I could get my hands on, going to the arcade was a big deal for me.  We're talking about a time when everything I used to play was 16 bit RPGs or platform games, so going into an arcade and playing something that was 3D and didn't use a standard control pad blew my goddamn mind.

So one day, I'm in London with my family since my dad had to do some work down there or something so to kill the time my mother agreed to take me to Sega World.  Now I've blogged about that place before, but holy shit it was amazing.  For a British child who loved video games, Sega World was gaming Mecca to me.

Anyway, one genre of game I really enjoyed playing back then was the rail shooters.  I really enjoyed using the light guns and there wasn't really a lot for my stupid child brain to figure out, I just had to point at the baddies and fire the gun.  House of the Dead was one of my favourites at the time, I loved the levels and when you died you got that cool little map that showed you how far you got.

Anyway, I'd had my session on House of the Dead and I went to some of the different floors to play other stuff like Fighting Vipers and Metal Slug and after the day wore on a bit I returned to the shooting floor to see if there was any other rail gun games that I hadn't played yet.  Then I saw this guy playing House of the Dead, way WAY older than I was and obviously a lot better than I was.  He was really far, to a point in the game that I had never even seen before, I couldn't help but just stand there and watch.

Once he beat the 3rd chapter he turned to me during the results screen and asked if I wanted to hop on with him.  My mother gave me a pound coin and I slammed that shit in and started shooting.  Now in hindsight I was probably fucking this guys game up, it becomes harder with 2 players and I probably wasn't pulling my weight, especially in the boss gauntlet.  We pushed on and made it through to the final level and then fucking Magician appeared.

When this motherfucker pops up he has NO weak point (apart from the blatantly exposed cables on his arms and legs, but I was young, whatever) and I lost my shit.  I had no idea what to do, my heart was going a mile a minute and my hands were shaking pretty bad.  We endured his attacks and shot wildly at him and eventually the last sliver of health dropped off and we beat the game.

We didn't really say much after that, I just thanked him put the gun back in its holster and then we went our separate ways.  That said, his kindness in letting me join him for the final stage to share that excitement as we fought the final boss is something that has stuck with me to this day, and it's a reason I enjoy going to arcades so much.

I've only really been to a proper arcade in Japan recently, but even to this day they still have that great environment and the people are quite friendly.  The games are also quite cheap and a lot of places do deals like 2 credits for certain games on certain days.  I'm glad there is one part of the world where coin-op is still a thing, I think gaming would be a lot worse off without it.

Dark Escape 3D Impressions and Gameplay

If you have been reading this blog since the start, you may remember that I posted what I thought of the upcoming rail shooter scarefest called Dark Escape 3D.  Well it came out, and the good folks at the mall near my apartment installed a machine, so I managed to get a go and record some footage.

There isn't really a lot to say about a rail shooter, and I did do some commentary in the video to say what's up, but one thing that I noticed is that in this game, your aim has to be fucking immaculate.  In games like House of the Dead, if you hit the zombie, they would recoil a little bit, so even if you weren't landing headshots you would have still bought yourself some time to not get hit.  In Dark Escape 3D, you get no such luxury so if you're not landing headshots CONSTANTLY, you're fucking dead.

Also, I didn't play it with the 3D on, because I would have been impossible to get decent footage for the damn thing if I had, so when I go and play it again, I'll do another little post about how good (or bad) the 3D effects are.

So yeah, the rest of what I want to say is in the video, so watch that for more info.  There is a little bit of glare on the screen despite the whole thing being pretty much sealed off, but this is due to the fact that the game centre near my apartment is lit by super powerful floodlights, but it doesn't affect things too badly I don't think.

Before the video, have a little bit of a photo gallery.

The Gun!

The Glasses

A screen saying that you can switch between 2D and 3D

The stage select screen

Alrite, alrite, enough fucking photos, VIDEO TIME!