More and more, we see games put out for our aging gray box that really prove it can do some serious polygon-pushing. The original RayStorm had some solid visuals, but RayCrisis: Series Termination really one-ups the genre. With tons of things happening on screen at once, from ships zooming by to massive battle-cruisers below you to tall buildings, with a camera that swings around constantly, the PlayStation is really pushed to the limits of its ability. And then you start firing the lighting gun. Mmm. The bosses are huge and detailed, the levels are short and detailed, and it’s all a wonderfully psychedelic experience. When you start taking ships out that are ten times larger than you, you’ll know it’s fun.

The sound is solid too, with jamming tunes and lots of explosions. There’s nothing here that’s really amazing, but it certainly fits the game, and it never relents. Some of the music is a little odd (especially the boss music), but no matter how strange it seems, it ends up being the right tune for the job.

And the woxil interface is always a plus.

Thankfully, RayCrisis has much tighter gameplay than its predecessor, and as such is a more enjoyable game. Taking a cue from Radiant Silvergun (the best damn shooter, ever), RayCrisis has you zooming through absolute fields of bullets and escaping unscathed... if you’re good.

There are two play modes. In Original Mode, you pick three different levels to play (and you can pick them in any order). There are more than three “levels” to choose from, so each time you play through Original Mode, it can be different. There’s also a short introduction piece that you always shoot through. This is a port of the arcade game, and as such, you get infinite continues. This means you can beat this version the first time you play it, although you’ll probably have to use lots and lots of continues to do so.

Then there’s Special Mode. In Special Mode, you always go through the levels the same way, and you have no continues. But many enemies drop one-ups, and the levels themselves are a little altered (a few are more detailed; others have different palettes for some of the bosses). This one’s damned tough to beat, if only because the last two bosses have some attacks that are well-nigh impossible to dodge consistently.

That’s not a fault of the control scheme, though, which is important enough in a twitch shooter to affect the gameplay seriously. You can use the analog stick, and although you have a little of the “drift” that was in RayStorm, the game seems to be more forgiving about hit detection as well. I can wend my way through a volley of bullets with (general) ease, and although the controls take a bit of getting use to, they’re easy once you know what you’re doing.

Unlike shooters that rely on lots of spiffy weapon power-ups, the Ray series has ships with two different types of attacks -- main and lock-on. The main attack is what you expect from any shooter -- lots of bullets/strong laser/whatever. The lock-on, however, is the real measure of skill in RayCrisis. The beginner’s ship can only lock on eight times, but the later ships can lock on up to 256 times (24 at a time), making for a serious volley of bullets. Perfection of the lock-on skills is necessary to keep a high score.

RayCrisis also has the requisite instant-death weapon, the Round Divider, which wipes out pretty much everything on the screen. It has something interesting called Encroachment, which basically shows how many of the enemies you’ve killed. If you don’t kill most of them, the levels are shorter and you don’t get as many opportunities to score. And the bosses are tough as nails, requiring you to get difficult patterns down quick... or die.

The Original Mode in RayCrisis is easy to beat, but it’s damned difficult to beat without using lots of continues. The later bosses can really put the smack down on you, and it’s hard to keep the Encroachment level down enough to get the “full” levels. The Special Mode is somewhat easier to get to the end of, as lots and lots of enemies drop one-ups, but the bosses are just as hard and you’ll end up frustrated at the last boss like I did. The games are not unbeatable, however, and they’re a whole lot of fun to go through over and over and see how well you can do.

The controls in RayCrisis are spot on, which is a wonderful improvement from RayStorm. The menus are clear and understandable, with the style we all know and love. And the HUD, which takes a bit of getting used to, is easy to handle once you know what it all means. The lock-on system is something that newcomers to the series will have to play with a bit to understand, but once you do, it’s second nature.

PS2: There are no real differences when playing RayCrisis on the PS2. It loads a little faster, yes, but the game had negligible load times in the first place. And the graphics are a little sharper, but there’s not enough time to really see just how much sharper they are -- everything happens so fast. This isn’t a game that really benefits from the PS2’s “advantages,” as it’s already a very solidly programmed title.

While RayCrisis brings nothing new to the shooter genre, it’s great to see these sorts of games still being put out. There’s been a serious lack of good shooter titles lately, and leave it to Working Designs to bring over this and the upcoming PS2 game, Silpheed: The Lost Planet. Any fan of the genre should definitely check this game out, as it contains all the requisite WD goodies... if you’re good enough. Fast, furious, and fun, RayCrisis: Series Termination will have you blazing away through the night.