No we’re not talking about the pop group, but rather the way in which rail shooters are developed. They aren’t made to take players on this fantastical open world journey, but rather to keep you restricted within a certain area and have you take out a horde of enemies with a time limit. This creates a very fast paced environment where reaction times must be high, and your hand eye coordination needs to be on point. Most times rail shooters have players standing in front of a big screen where lots of things are happening all at once, and you’ll have to decide how to take each enemy out without dying. You sometimes will need to tap your foot to reload, or pull your gun away from the screen in order to replenish your bullets. Other types of rail shooters have you seated and watch the scenes play out in front of you, while your finger is on the trigger waiting for the next enemy to jump out at you. Despite its limitations, rail shooters are incredibly fun and engaging and one that has always been number one in terms of thrill is none other than Sega’s House of the Dead.

One of the games that really sparked a lot of attention but also helped to revolutionize the rail shooter genre was none other than House of the Dead. The game’s formula of course has been seen before, preferably in Capcom’s Resident Evil where hordes of flesh eating zombies torment the down and you need to take them out before the city turns to ruin. That very same formula now allows you to take control of that gun and do things the way you like, whether you want to look fancy shooting a gun or go straight out Al Capone style. This was the shining point of House of the Dead because it took what we already knew and established in our minds and brought it to life by allowing us to feel more in control. Of course the game was on scripted path and so you couldn’t really explore any hidden territory, but you could still do everything else such as pick up different types of guns and raise hell like never before. Taking your foot off the pedal would allow you to come out from behind the wall and shoot down anything that moves, then quickly stop your foot back down to take cover and prevent further damage.

Within 5-10 seconds you’ll be quickly reloading your gun and going right back at it, and this constant adrenaline rush is what makes playing House of the Dead satisfying. You’re so afraid dying but you also want to rack up a ton of points to place onto the leaderboards, so it’s this back of forth of wanting to show off how good you are but not look like a total buffoon trying to do so. Each stage gradually became more challenging with an eventual boss battle that would take place, and this time very little mistakes can be made. Projectiles are flying at you from every direction on screen, while the boss is racing towards you in order to claw you across the face to kill you. So not only do you need to be constantly aware of your surroundings, your eyes must always be locked on the bigger enemy hunting you down.

Since there’s very little room for you to move in a rail shooter, there’s nowhere to run since everything rushes right at you without warning. This can of course be a good thing and a bad thing depending on how you look at it, but generally rail shooters have typically garnered a lot of positive reception from those who’ve dabbled with it. It’s by no means your quintessential FPS home console experience, but it certainly requires you to get used to the environment very quickly since you only have so much time to play. Most rail shooter games are quite pricey ranging around the 200 to sometimes 300 yen just for maybe one or two plays, but for the fun that you get out of it all it’s often worth the change. One game in particular is just so jam packed full of action that money will be drained out of your pockets, and that’s Time Crisis.

Time Crisis has been around for just as long as House of the Dead, but both differ in terms of their overall style of play. One focuses more on blowing the heads off of brain dead zombies, while the other has you teaming up with a squad and shooting down criminals with whatever weapon you have at your disposal. Oftentimes you’ll come across a wicked rocket launcher that’ll pop up on screen, and so to equip it you’ll need to shoot at the icon. While that may sound simple, try doing that when enemies have launchers of their own, and you’ve got 7 to 8 missiles headed straight for you. If one hits you that takes off a massive chunk of health, and if 2 hits you then it’s time to throw in another 200 yen. By the time you’re finished all of your transport and gyoza money is out the window, all because Time Crisis consumed your life. It’s just that addicting to play this game because every scenario is different, despite having such a linear approach to design. Bullets are flying left and right while you’re desperately trying to shoot at any new weapon you can find to make your experience easier, but the game just doesn’t allow you.

While that does sound infuriating it’s in fact the whole selling point of the game, it’s that you’re meant to die fast so that of course Namco can laugh to the bank, but moreso to keep you coming back for more. Had things just been a walk in the park then perhaps you’d be yelling at how expensive the game is and not provide any merit in return. In Time Crisis 5: True Mastermind, everything that you loved from the arcade versions along with the console versions are all in this nicely designed package, and takes the hype to a whole new level. Map layouts and design are far more superior than its predecessors, with framerate performance staying at a nice consistent 60FPS which means wicked speed, and lightning reflexes for anyone who tries to master it. Sadly, the game is only in Japan at the moment, so if you want to pick up the light gun and shoot away then be sure to drop by any major arcade in Tokyo to take part in the action!

Sega has a plethora of titles in their historically long catalog, and while many may have forgotten a lot of them along the way we find it hard to forget Virtua Cop 3. Sega’s popular Virtua style series came in a variety of ways, from sports with its Virtua Tennis franchise, to fighting with its Virtua Fighter. Virtua Cop 3 was the title that focused on rail shooting and made a lot of sense because, you play as a team of skilled cops who must shoot their way through a gang of criminals in order to take down the new crime syndicate known as ECM. The gameplay made some really great changes to make it all stand out, one of which was implementing a slow motion bullet time feature referred to as ES Mode in game.

As you’d expect, you’ll be able to slow down time and take out as many enemies as you can and the more you take out you can replenish your ES meter.Virtua Cop 3 also allowed you to swap between various weapons by simply pressing a button on the light gun, which compared to before you’d only be limited to just using one weapon at a time. The great thing about Virtua Cop 3 is that you could choose between three missions all of which come with their own difficulty, along with a unique story to go along with it. You can choose from simple chapter, normal chapter and hard chapter, but depending on how you perform you can also unlock the ultimate chapter. This game is incredibly fun and is indicative of just how innovative of a company Sega has been since the early 90’s up until now. Not only did Virtua Cop 3 open new doors of opportunity for other companies to take advantage of, but it leaves behind an amazing legacy as one of the best rail shooters out there.