Why Game? 1 - TextFiles.com

Rayforce, Raystorm and Raycrisis
Francesco-Alessio Ursini
It’s one of those days.
The sun shines but dark clouds are on the
horizon, it’s hot outside and a cold breeze moves
my hair, which keeps getting longer and longer.
I am listening to the Raycrisis OST and
thinking on life and trivial matters. Maybe
they’re trivial because they’re matters of life.
Maybe they’re trivial because I perceive them as
such, because I make them trivial.
1994.
Taito released one of the best shooters
ever. You may not agree with this statement,
fine, but there’s a reason behind this conjecture
of mine. Rayforce is one of the first titles to
start the modern era of shooters. I have written
in my own journal about a possible (and pretty
questionable) arrangement of shooters, based
on their phases of evolution. One of the basic
ideas that I have proposed in that entry is this:
by 1994, the waning of the classic arcade plat-
former and its domination in the matter of score
and points will be overtaken when the shooter
picks up the mantle of the most score-driven
genre.
That’s life, once the alpha male isn’t that
alpha anymore, someone else will take his role.
Or maybe the hierarchy of constraints changes
and suddenly one competitor becomes the
114 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #3
optimal one. Regardless of the different shades
of theoretical background I choose to use,
one thing is certain: in 1994, there were three
shooters published that marked the transition of
the genre into a more score-driven attitude.
These titles are Batsugun, Raiden DX and
Rayforce. I won’t talk about the first two titles,
even though they might deserve a lengthy and
flamboyant treatise too. I just want to talk,
more or less, about Rayforce, Raystorm and
Raycrisis. My personal life, in some parts, will
leak in. But, as you may already have guessed,
there’s a reason for that.
Rayforce is one of the few titles on the Tai-
to F3 hardware that is not a remake/sequel/etc.
At the very first glance, it’s not even a particu-
larly impressive title. The attract demo is very
simple; a pilot - a girl with green hair - chases a
few ships across an asteroid belt. After the hunt
is over, the title zooms in.
Rayforce.
Or Layer Section, or Gunlock, or Galactic
Attack. These were the various names branded
to the home versions, but I always played
the arcade version Rayforce. Beside that, the
sequels are called Raystorm and Raycrisis, so
I’ll use this name. Now let’s go on - or better,
let’s go back. It is October of 1994, and things
are changing. I don’t really remember what was
going in my life at that time, but it was probably
some trivial matter of love. Those trivial matters