"A light gun gamer's review...Ho ho ho - Now I have a machine gun!"

Okay, a show of hands: who hasn't ever wanted to rampage through a mall full of criminals with a machine pistol? No one? That's what I thought.

''Crisis Zone,'' an arcade game by our friends at Namco, is a light gun game that has you using a Steyr TMP-like gun (purported to be an MP5K in game, but the actual gun looks like a TMP to me) to clear out roomfuls and roomfuls of baddies. All the standard conventions of TC are here - deadly red shirts, ninjas, crisis sightings, and bosses. That's A Good Thing (TM). There's more here than ''Time Crisis 2.5,'' however. Enemies now have body armor and often take several hits to bring down, and the addition of fully automatic weaponry and a riot shield to hide behind (no more relying on park benches, thankfully ;P ) changes the pace of the gameplay considerably, giving it a fluidity that drives it along like a good action flick.

There are problems, however. There is no two-player mode, an understandable if disappointing omission. The game is, like most games in the ''Time Crisis'' subgenre, fairly short. You'll memorize the enemy placements even quicker in ''Crisis Zone'' because of the limited number of foes on screen (a fair trade-off, it must be said, for the increased detail and health of the enemy). More problematic is the fact that the mechanics that made ''Time Crisis 2'' a wonderful game to master, including combo hitting and shooting the head for extra points, are too easy to pull off with a gun that has 40 rounds in it. Instead of requiring good reflexes and good aim, CZ mostly requires a steady hand.

And steady you will have to be. The arcade gun shakes with incredibly cool internal recoil that neatly simulates a real automatic action, though of course a real gun kicks a heckuva lot harder. The graphics are exceptional, especially considering the release date of the game. Everything is pretty fluid on the sprightly System 23 board, and there are a metric ton of things to destroy in the game - shelves full of merchandise, windows, and enemy shields. Things explode and shatter convincingly when hit by the hail of bullets you'll inevitably inflict on them. The game shows all of the polish of a regular TC game, which is a welcome departure from the typical bare-bones presentation of lesser gun game companies.

All in all, CZ is a blast, and highly recommended.

PROS
+ Cool idea and exciting gameplay
+ Good graphics and quality sound
+ Great gun with neat internal recoil

CONS
- Short like the previous TC games
- Fairly easy gameplay after a few tries
- No two player modes

BOTTOM LINE
A fun way to spend an afternoon. While CZ lacks the two-player modes and is a little less deep than TC2 (hurting its replay value), it's still a boatload of addictive fun.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/30/03, Updated 07/30/03