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[Paul Eres]

trivia: doom came out the same year as starfox, and i prefer the way starfox utilized 3d to the way doom did -- it's disappointing that an entire genre was created out of doom whereas starfox didn't lead to many real successors or a genre. it's probably just arbitrary which genres appear and which potential genres never appear.

[Eric McQuiggan]

Rail Shooter is considered by many as the irritating little brother of the FPS.

[Paul Eres]

it's true that it's closer to a rail shooter, but starfox isn't a rail shooter exactly though -- you can move in different directions (there's some leeway in camera view, it's not a fixed camera movement forward with set angles), you can also choose your path through the game (each path having a completely different set of levels) -- but speaking of rail shooters, i do enjoy rail shooters more than fps games, although one problem with both rail shooters and fps games is the focus on people on the ground walking. i'd prefer more where you can fly, like in starfox.

[Eric McQuiggan]

Have you Played Rebel Assault? It was another flying rail shooter.

Also check out Aces of the Galaxy

Games like that were more popular in the NES days with games like Afterburner.

[BMcC]

Sin & Punishment!  Sin & Punishment 2!

[Paul Eres]

will look into those games, hadn't heard of them. but they're all for platforms i don't own unfortunately, except for rebel assault, which seems to be similar to tie fighter, which i did like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_TIE_Fighter

[Eric McQuiggan]

More story then tie fighter, but it's less of of a wing commander style space opera and more of a rail shooter. You can get Aces of the Galaxy for the PC.

[Chris Z]

Oh man I must've played through Rebel Assault about 20 times, the Star Destroyer mission was a blast.  It's a rail shooter played through FMV with destructible elements, it was very well done and seamless for the most part.  Like Eric said, there's more story but there's also constant action.  You can also get it for PC by the way, that's the version I played.  There was a sequel that was a bit higher res and featured a more unique story line, but I remember that being too easy and not as entertaining as the original.  Several years ago there was a Lucasarts bundle available with RA1 and 2, X-Wing, TF, and possibly others.

[Stargoat]

Sin & Punishment!  Sin & Punishment 2!

This.

But you know what we -really- need? A new Panzer Dragoon.

[Stefan Schwartz]

Sorry to break up the discussion on rail shooters, but I have something to say about Sony's new gimmick.

I immediately liked it more than the MotionPlus or the Natal demos. I thought about why that was for a long time (since you have to admit, even though the tech might be different, they are very similar in application) and I came up with this answer. Both Microsoft and Nintendo demoed their tech with minigames, like Wii Sports or that Ricochet thing. That's great. I can see how you could make great casual games with it (and to clarify, i define casual as a game that doesn't require a lot of time to learn or to play - its a category, not a value judgement). But that's not what I'm interested in.

Sony, on the other hand, showed it off partly with a demo of a knight swinging a sword and killing skeletons. They showed me how their tech could be applied to traditional games, like RPG's. Whether or not its casual or hardcore, that just happens to be what I like. Longer, story driven games, like Zelda (anyone else think of zelda when they saw those skeletons?). Nintendo didn't show me anything. At the very least, they could have demoed Red Steel 2. But they didn't.

Realistically, I'm sure all the different controllers are good, and have applications in both hardcore and casual games. In this particular case, however, Sony was the best salesman, showing me what I wanted to see and what I stood to gain from their technology.

[Paul Eres]

as an aside, this is the flaw of this current 'threaded' forum system. remember when forums used to be bulletin-board system? that was great, because if you got off topic, it'd just be literally a different "branch" of the discussion tree, it wouldn't interrupt the original discussion. i wonder if i can somehow find a modern forum software that uses that old system.

[BMcC]

Sorry to break up the discussion on rail shooters, but I have something to say about Sony's new gimmick. ...

Yeah, for sure.  I mean, Red Steel 2 was demoed, just not during the presentation.  And apparently the next Zelda will use Motion Plus heavily.  Miyamoto said something like, "Imagine Zelda when you're swinging the sword and shooting the bow in Wii Sports Resort."  But yeah.

[salade]

y'know, if you want to get into the technical aspects of it, sony's motion crap isn't that much superior to Nintendo's motion crap. Sure it can sense up to submilimeter precision, but at the wii's level of resolution, and processing capability, do you need that? It wouldn't be very surprising if that method mistakes background lights for controllers either.

[AaronAardvark]

I just saw this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiX-26VL4bM

The demonstrations they have look far better than the level of integration I've seen between games and the Wii controller.  It actually looks really good.  I'm interested in seeing what kinds of games come out for it.

[Alevice]

as an aside, this is the flaw of this current 'threaded' forum system.

this one is actually colloquially known as flat topics and the other one you emntion as threaded.

I know some forum engines and plugins support such a thing. Personally i have never liked it due to goddamned being a clickfest