Time Crisis

"Bang!"

Gun games, what can I say. They’re just so criminally underrated its pitiful, only surviving by a dedicated few who refuse to them em die out. Thank the heavens for Namco not only sticking to the games they created but also giving us a gun game that was not only fun but also tested our reflexes and gave a new meaning to the term interactive gameplay. Of course that game is none other then Time Crisis.

Skinny: The President’s daughter of the nation of Sercia (a made up country, btw) is kidnapped and is used as a bargaining chip by a madman terrorist. If the President doesn’t comply in 24 hours…well you can pretty much guess. The only hope is a V.S.S.E agent named Richard Miller, a.k.a. “The one man army”, to storm their stronghold and rescue the little lady. A “been there, done that” premise but the execution is very well done even with a little twist in the middle.

Play Dials: A plastic light gun and a pedal for ducking and reloading. Both simple to use if they’re working properly, which sucks to high heaven if it doesn’t as you paid good money to use the machine and they don’t tell you about it first hand. Oops, ranting, sorry. Any who, pressing down on the pedal allows you to pop out and take your shots while releasing it lets you hide and avoid incoming gunfire. A very nifty innovative idea at the time giving the game a bit of a twitch feel. Now you can work you movement and your trigger finger.

Core: The game offers two modes of play at the beginning, Story and Time Trial. Story self-explanatory, you go through three levels with 3 areas each blasting away bad guys and finding out how everything goes down. Time Trial is sort of a practice mode where you can pick one of the three levels with no hit points, trying to blast your way through the baddies before time boots you out of the game. Not bad but trying to get through the hoard of henchmen, ninjas, bazooka men, etc doesn’t make this game a pushover and the fact your trying to beat the clock (preventing anyone from ducking too long) relies you to be on your toes at all times. However while I love the gameplay and difficulty, the game does get the upper hand by allowing the enemies to give random shots. Making it next to impossible to know if your going to get hit or not (though they fixed this in the next game) but I will admit I did like throwing caution to the wind in some scenarios. Also its a bit too short with the areas, an expert marksman can blow through the game in a matter of seconds considering the guns on par. But it a fun ride while it last and the time trial mode does give you a challenge on setting the best time for you point seekers. Oh it also one player, so folks are going to have to wait while you play through.

Eye-Candy: Jagged and pixilated, but this was made in 1996 and that was the style of 3-D at the time. The movement animation is very realistic however showing that motion capture was a good quality decision. Backgrounds have some nice detail though your mostly looking a brick walls through the remainder of the game.

Noise: Good action style music that keep you going and some decent voice acting showing that they were trying to show it like a movie as compared to the very infamous B-movie stuff that was House of the Dead. Gunfire and explosions are right on cue, working in tangent with the chaos at screen.

Final Call: Outstanding and on a first try too. Because when something this good comes along you know you want more, and that’s exactly what we got with two more entries (well, four if you count the Playstation exclusive, Project Titian, and the follow up known as Crisis Zone) that make up a great series. Once again, bless you Namco, may you never run out of great ideas like this.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/16/04