Time Crisis

"First of the Trilogy"

Time Crisis is the first of several different shooting games in a rather successful series. Much like Time Crisis 2 and Crisis Zone, you move from stage to stage while using a pedal to duck and reload your weapon rather than just taking hits and point off screen. The difference between this game and Time Crisis 2, is that you have slightly simpler visuals rolled into a rather fast paced game. Much like the other games in the series, once you’ve been through the game, there is nothing left to do other than get a better score!

The Game Play

The game play is nothing short of be quick or be dead in terms of having to shoot whatever comes your way. The basis of the game is not so much the points that you score, or even what path you take, but more or less being able to use the game control in such a way that you avoid as much damage as you can within the different stages! Most of what you’re doing is straight forward in which you have control of a character that relies on being nimble to avoid getting nailed from several different shots from high and low. What’s more, is that with certain in game shooting, you can actually redirect your path in such a way that you score huge points, which goes a long way to your overall ranking.

Now, the point to the game play really hasn’t changed much from game to game in the series, so all you have to do is remember where the enemies pop up and you’ll find that shooting them and getting a top score is easy. Once you’ve gotten a pretty good idea where the bonus characters are and shoot them for massive points, then you’ll find that the game is extremely easy as long as you avoid the cheap shots that come your way. As with most light gun games, the only problem there might be is with the calibration of the gun.

The Visuals

The stages are all completely detailed and while the characters have a somewhat blocky look to them, they fall and fold as a real life target would if you were to shoot them! Something that most gamers will pick up on is that the game is so linear and straightforward, that once you’ve been through the game, there is nothing new to see on any of the stages. Another small plus to the game is that there isn’t any sort of slow down with the game visuals and in most cases, even the characters manage to stay on screen and no blink out of existence. All in all, it’s pretty interesting, but doesn’t have the background damage like Crisis Zone has!

The Audio

The audio found here in Time Crisis is little more than some action music that changes from stage to stage and more or less falls into the background without really giving you anything to listen to at certain points of the game! Much like the other games in the series, there is nothing that truly changes from game to game. The sound effects on the other hand are something that are rather well done, although the voice acting that the game allows is a bit too Resident Evil like for my liking and in most cases, you’ll just skip through the crappy way that it sounds in any case. There is something to be said for the announcer yelling at you to go in different parts of the stages though, and it really does come across as something that you can listen to at all times.

Why you might not like this game:

Time Crisis is the beginning of the series that shows the dating on it. With the lack of superior visuals, there is nothing here that keeps it from falling to the wayside when compared to Time Crisis 2 and to Crisis Zone. The voice acting is just as bad here as it was in the other games, so be on the look out as well and from time to time, it seems as though the pedal just doesn’t have the response time that you might be looking for!

The Verdict

There is nothing here that you haven’t played through once or twice before with slightly better looking results. Even though there aren’t too many secret things to find in this game {there really aren’t any}, the action is just as fast and furious here as it is in the later games. With the slightly dated visuals though, you may be more likely to run to a Time Crisis 2 or a Crisis Zone machine before you’ll play through this. Best played knowing that this is the one example of an original product making a rather high impact, it’s worth a few dollars in quarters!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/21/02, Updated 05/21/02