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.