Opinions on Rail Shooters

[Spirit]

The rail shooter is one of, if not my favourite genre, of games to play. One of the only things i felt that the wii had going for it (aside form a good run of letting me down at every turn) was the amount of rail shooters it had on it; Resident Evil Darkside and Umbrella Chronicles, Dead Space Extraction, Sin and Punishment 2 and two House of the Dead games. That is a pretty good run for an almost dead genre and games like Sin and Punishment really ushed the boundaries of what rail shooters can do in terms of gameplay. To me the rail shooter is still a genre that still has a lot of potential, a lot can be done with it, yes it is seen as a cheap genre, but do you think that there is depth enough in the genre to warrant more of its kind being made? Or do rail shooters really rub you the wrong way?

 

[Ventus]

ut do you think that there is depth enough in the genre to warrant more of its kind being made?
I am highly selective towards rail shooters. I don't like playing them by myself, for one, because I feel they are only two player kinds of games. Second, I heavily disapprove of console-based rail shooters; I've played my first on-rails at an Arcade with my family, and it's the ONLY way to play them for me. Yeah, console-based rail shooters is more practical; you just buy the game and have a field day. But, the heart of rails is at the arcade. So, since I am so selective towards rail shooters, I don't think I can say there is enough depth in the genre to warrant more being produced. I could be wrong, though.

Or do rail shooters really rub you the wrong way?
I still love rail shooters even if I hate playing them on the couch.

 

[A Link In Time]

I'm not a fan of rail shooters-at least not in the traditional sense of playing as a grounded character with gun in hand. Deviations on this standard formula have proved more varied and interesting such as the intergalactic Star fox franchise.

The worse case scenario for a rail shooter is a series which was previously open to player control making the transition to this limited perspective. This was the case with Resident evil which has never fully recovered since. If a franchise initiates as a regular non rail game, it should never shift to rails or vice versa. Sin & Punishment is a great example of consistency in this respect.

 

[Clananik]

railshooters are good if you find them for a fiver in a bargain bin, but personally i don't think that there worth the retail price due to the limited gameplay.

 

[Cfrock]

I'm not a huge rail-shooter fan but I do enjoy them. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are playing various Time Crisis and House of the Dead games in arcades. When it comes to rail-shooters at home though, I generally only go for ones which really appeal to me for reasons other than gameplay. The chief examples being Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles (which was a fantastic game).

I don't really know where the genre can go to evolve but, frankly, they're fun enough as it is so I would be fine if they stayed more or less the same.

The worse case scenario for a rail shooter is a series which was previously open to player control making the transition to this limited perspective. This was the case with Resident evil which has never fully recovered since.

I don't understand, are you saying Resident Evil as a whole is now a rail-shooter series or just saying that the rail-shooter spin-offs are bad?
In my opinion the 'classic' RE games have far less player control than the 'modern' ones. Resident Evil 6 has unprecedented amounts of control compared to, say, RE2 or Code: Veronica, for example.

The Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles were very typical of rail-shooters, with Darkside using a lot of camera techniques to try to immerse you more in the story. The Survivor games were just... I don't even want to talk about them. Ok I will. They were hilariously awful. Like, so bad you can't help but laugh. But the series' later experiments with rail-shooters were much more well made and interesting. Heck, Dead Aim actually let you run around and explore a ship, it was much closer to RE4 in terms of gameplay than it was to the other rail-shooters.

I don't mean to sound like a twonk, just trying to understand what you mean when you say the series has "never fully recovered".

 

[Dan]

I love rail shooters such as house of the dead. Not to mention the amazing acting that came with that game. I find these especially fun to play on at the arcade or wii, anything with motion control. I refuse to ever play them with a mouse or controller. I also liked the resident evil rail shooters so shoot me. On a rail *80's sitcom laughter*

 

[Johnny Sooshi]

I love rail shooters. Panser Dragoon was one of my all time favorites and to this day I can't get enough of a rail shooter. There's just something so timeless and classic about it.

 

[Alfarin]

I enjoy a good rail shooter. Granted, outside of the arcade they've had a very hard time, most only really finding decent homes on the Wii (and to a lesser extent, PSMove but that's basically a bloody WiiMote anyway) - And the Wii has had some crackers in the form of two RE Chronicles games, Three (technically) House of the Dead games among others.

As far as the future of the genre? I don't know. House of the Dead IV, from what I played, was, well, pants. Combined with the decline of III machines from (ab)use and being OOP (Does that happen to arcade machines?), my thoughts on the future of the genre are uncertain.

 

[nareky]

I dislike most games that are on "tracks/rails" so to me am not that fussed about them some are good tho. Pokemon snap (not quite a shooter ) on the n64 was played many a time So i dont have a totally negative opinion on them.