"a.k.a. 'Time Crisis 666'."

As any trigger-happy teenager would be upon seeing such a sight at a family-oriented institution, I squealed with girlish delight upon seeing a Crisis Zone machine at a mom-and-pop diner in Mississippi. I was about as excited as a chubby adolescent girl upon getting a Menudo Fanclub Kit complete with a form letter ''signed by the Boys''. I stood there, not thinking about how Bubba and Jim-Bob managed to buy such a snazzy-looking piece of hardware simply by selling chicken-fried steaks and old beer. I also ignored the Metal Slug/Bust A Move machine humming beside and I actually got up the nerve to put in the exorbitant rate of ONE DOLLAR for a crack at this awe-inspiring game. It felt like Dragon's Lair all over again, dammit. Only this time Dirk the Daring has an MP-5. The speakers rang out with a deep-sounding gunshot for every quarter I dumped in, courtesy of the ''GASHIN Strong Bass System'' (whatever that means), and I was in. ''ZONE SELECT!'' The Voice-Over Guy™ coolly commanded, immediately asserting an air of authority yet at the same time sounding rather afraid and anxious for you to get your ass into your gear. Amazing. I hefted the heavy weapon, pleased to find that Namco had provided me with a rad-looking laser sight as well, and I tugged back the trigger.

And thus started an obsession that I still carry with me to this day. Yes, I am a sad individual. I'm able to beat Time Crisis II without being hit once incredibly easily, and I occupy the entire Top 5. I always play einhander and turn the gun sideways ''ghetto-style'' to impress the young 'uns whenever finishing off a Boss. I get rounds of applause whenever Ernesto Diaz plummets to his fate. I twirl the Guncon. I bow.

My palate needed cleansing badly. Like any wine-tasting snob would tell you whenever having Walgreen's liquor, the bouquet left an assload to be desired. ''Dammit, Namco, give me something to silence the demons!!'' I cried to the heavens over the Time Crisis Shrine in my bedroom. As the hundreds of candles I placed wore down to nubs, I began kicking around thoughts of spray-painting a massive pentagram on the carpet when I wandered into Bubba and Jim-Bob's place during a lengthy road trip.

''Stop waffling, psxgamer813! Tell us about the game!'' you're probably bellowing right now, slamming your fist onto the desk. It's a safe bet, then, that anyone who isn't afraid to blow away a few terrorists in the name of All That Is Good will pick up the Holy MP-5 and become addicted.

Listen up, soldier, because I'm only going to say this once. Upon reviewing the text boxes on the machine at Bubba and Jim-Bob's fine establishment, I gleaned this useless information on the story that is not mentioned in the rolling demo: You are Croad MacGalhain (quite possibly Irish, and a mouthful to boot), captain of the ATF (Advanced Tactics and Firearms) team that is sent into a residential area, consisting of a mall, an office building, and a park, outside of London. There appears to be nowhere for the residents to live, but I suppose there are enough benches in the park to go around. Unfortunately, you aren't there to browse the Victoria's Secret stores and bash Avril Lavigne at the Sam Goody, you're there to kick ass and chew bubblegum. As the old axiom goes, you appear to be out of bubblegum.

Garland Square, as the place has been dubbed, is seized by a terrorist group calling themselves the ''URDA''. At no point in the game is the acronym spelled out for us to reveal something awesomely cool like ''United Radical Demonstrators who like to kick Ass'', but the purpose is clear that they are Not To Be Messed With. Issuing the imaginary list of demands (which would probably involve the release of some guys in some prisons and a lot of money) is the ringleader, the formidable-looking Derrick Lynch, who appears to be dressed in a Soviet Commandant's uniform. Assumably, the man is a Soviet defector or something crazy like that. By all means his death is perfectly justified. All of his Vile Henchmen are lying in wait for anyone to interfere. A perfect scenario to drop in the ATF men with their leader Mr. MacGalhain.

Stress is high upon the leader -- the sparse team is responsible for reclaiming all three areas of Garland Plaza and wiping them free of resistance. At your disposal is the Holy MP-5, which is a surprisingly faithful replica of the real thing, even duplicating the Firing Mode switch (which is, of course, locked in at Full Automatic) and putting in the aiming leaf and sighting reticule on the gun barrel. They couldn't be more useless. Or cool.

Upon selecting a Zone at the outset, the Godlike Announcer will coolly yet assertively announce where you are going to kick ass (assumably, to confirm the decision although it's too late to reverse it). The Godlike Announcer's duties are regulated to coolly yet assertively telling you to Reload and announcing the Place of Ass-Kicking. It's a thankless job. The other characters, mainly the other members of the ATF team and Lynch, sound like they've been done by the same dopey voice actors from the first two Time Crises; i.e. like a burly, muscular man slammed them in the testicles with a morning-star a few times and then handed them the mic. The script, thankfully, isn't as dialog-intensive as Time Crisis II, and the cutscenes are much shorter; this is a blessing and a curse in the respect that there are no more corny lines to giggle at (''Why is it taking you so long to get ridda them?''), but that's negligible. The only capable voice actor is responsible for delivering Derrick Lynch's lines, and he sounds exactly like Wild Dog from Crises I and II. Hmm. The Generic Grunts don't give much of a peep other than an ''URGH'' or ''AUGH'' as their not-quite-convincing death wail. I want to play a game where the dying enemy utters strings of profanity and coughs up blood, dammit.

From there you're thrust headfirst into the immersive game. Your Holy MP-5, which vibrates convincingly with every burst of gunfire, blessed (we'll get to that later) with infinite ammunition beyond the 40-round clip (?!), is capable of unloading about 10 rounds a second into one of your many, many unfortunate foes. Much like Crises I and II, you, the Gamer, are given a pedal to utilize at will to hide and reload with. By default, Croad MacGalhain is hidden behind a SWAT-issue titanium blast shield with a small viewing slit to observe the action beyond. By stomping on the pedal, preferably with a smirk and a curse word, you are out in the open and able to fire at enemies. The standard URDA Grunts are also using automatic rifles, and occasionally one might draw a bead on you and fire off a potentially lethal bullet at your skull. Fortunately for you, Namco has given you a Crisis Sight that flashes in a red circle (and in this incarnation, helpfully bleeps for you) around the enemy whenever one has you in their sights, affording you a split-second to hide behind your shield. As opposed to Crises I and II, where you take cover behind natural obstacles such as a pillar, a box, or a corner, the blast shield is a superior innovation, not forcing you to hide behind a blind corner and gamble every time you pop out. Crisis Sights are visible beyond the confines of the shield, and are helpful in determining when it's safe to lower your guard and pour depleted Uranium into their bodies. Various garb can determine who you should take down first. A Low-Level Grunt wears orange and blue clothing and will rarely draw a bead on you; Higher-Level Grunts wear blue and brown and are stronger and more accurate; Sharpshooters wear red Terrorist Attire, will always aim with precision, but are relatively weak, and Big Bruisers wear white, take numerous clips of ammunition to send to Boot Hill, and will, when close enough, offer to smash in your rugged Irish face with the boot of their rifle. Grenadiers and Knife-Throwers are dressed in black and will sometimes appear from behind corners and surprise you. Best to keep on your toes throughout.

The combat itself is spiced up. We have evolved beyond the ludicrous ''One-Shot Kills'' in previous Crises where your pistol was turned into the PSG-1 from Metal Gear Solid, capable of slaying an enemy with a hit to the little finger. No, with great firepower comes greater enemy strength. A Final Fight-esque lifebar appears over an enemy's head and steadily goes down whenever they are hit. Weaker URDA soldiers will be felled more easily, as mentioned. Bosses have a special life meter that goes down in various stages until finally dead. In various machines, the life total you begin the game with is changed. Some machines offer as little as two life points to go on, while others give you up to four or five. Look around for the best ''bargains''. As usual, the clock is steadily ticking in the lower right, only this time the limit is changed to 35 seconds, affording you little margin for error, although there are *very* few instances in which the time limit poses a problem (this time around, the penalty for running out of time is only one life, as opposed to instant loss), and it shows that the series is moving out of the ''Time Attack'' rut that made some despise Time Crisis I. A small problem presents itself -- during cutscenes, Croad is seen warring alongside fellow ATF members, but during actual gameplay, you never run into any of them, even as people dashing across the line of fire (FPS mainstays, to boot). As annoying as they would be, seeing them there in the battlefield dishing it out would have heightened the suspension of disbelief just enough to create a sense of teamwork. But since the typical Time Crisis-er likes to play his games einhander, this is also insignificant. Also a staple of the Crises is the Hit Meter, which awards you many, MANY bonus points every time in a row you score a hit on something; be it CDs on a rack, the armor of a tank, Tiger's massive hindquarters, priceless Ming Dynasty vases, statues, or Generic URDA Grunts. Stringing up combos of 100+ hits is easy enough with such a rapid-fire weapon such as the Holy MP-5, but the Hit Meter is displayed inconveniently with tiny text in the upper left corner and can spell ruin for your combo if someone manages a lucky shot and scrapes off a life point while you're straining to see just how many points you'd get if you pulled it off. Then there's the luscious environment. Massive panes of glass fragment convincingly as you pour rounds into the poor saps hiding behind them, and pillars disintegrate and shatter on the ground. Bullet holes STAY IN THE WALL. Sorry, Max Payne, you aren't the first game with a fully destructible environment. Un-be-frickin'-lievable.

Bosses are a blast. In each Zone, be it the Technology Centre (this is Britain, remember), Park, or Plaza, there is a Boss ready to teach the ATF whippersnappers not to mess with the URDA. Garland Plaza contains a Tank with many things with lifebars to blow away (side-mounted guns, tactical missile launchers, et al.), Garland Park houses an extremely annoying helicopter which is able to fire eight missiles at once, and the Technology Centre is home to the only real human henchmen -- a pair of righteous black dudes codenamed Edgey and Tiger; a gymnast/virtuoso with throwing knives and a Strong Bad™ with an Uzi, respectively. Baader-Meinhof rejects, no doubt. Boss battles are long, drawn-out, and usually longer than the rest of the level. The Tank is my personal favorite, as you weave around escalators and duck behind plastic indoor plants as the tank struggles to move in position to attack you, the Main Gun swiveling around to put huge craters in the wall. Lovely.

Whittling the hours (and quarters) away playing Crisis Zone is diverting enough for some time, even as the game grows stale and you're playing it in your sleep, imagining red-clothed Grunts locking onto you, your foot twitching like you're having a brain aneurysm. The mark of a true hardcore Crisis-er is the Twitching Foot Syndrome, and by God, I still have it, even after somewhat kicking my Crisis Zone addiction. They need to release a patch for this game.

Odd Niggles/The Satanist Conspiracy/Ham-Handed Conclusion

Still scratching your head, wondering why my tagline was implemented in the first place? The Main Theme of Crisis Zone is played during some of the ''tense'' cutscenes, like Croad MacGalhain clambering through an air duct or the ATF moving through the Park. The theme now sends a chill down my spine, because it sounds EXACTLY like ''Tubular Bells'', the main theme for The Exorcist. Not minding the fact that the ''Ending/Victory'' theme stole from Zelda, I began to think about the subtle and implied undertones that this presents, assuming the music composer sought to do this on purpose. Perhaps the ATF team held a party with some Wiccans who blessed them before going off on their mission. This would be a somewhat logical explanation for their precognition regarding who's going to shoot them and when. This also explains why Croad MacGalhain doesn't show his rugged Irish face and instead chooses to hide behind his helmet throughout the game. And it's damn cool to be able to play as The Dark One for once.

Crisis Zone is excellent and addictive. This game thirsts for a PS2 conversion, and fast. My palate needs some more cleansing, and hopefully Time Crisis 4 will deliver the goods a fourth time. PLAY. NOW.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/10/03, Updated 05/24/03