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Namco has always been able to appeal to the raw primitive nature of gamesters, whether it’s beating seven shades of shinola out of your opponent, racing at blistering speeds to some rockin’ hard music, or blowing some F-22’s out of the sky. Namco’s latest is the gun-toting adventure, Time Crisis.
Rachel MacPherson, daughter of the President of Certia, has been kidnapped by the nefarious crime syndicate known as Wild Dogs. Rachel has been ransomed for secret military information in the war being waged between the recently ousted monarchy of Certia and the republican government. Enter Richard Miller - secret agent and marksman extraordinare - who is assigned to the onerous task of rescuing the poor damsel in distress. Time is not on his side, and he must complete his mission before they do away with the poor girl.
Time Crisis places you in the shoes of Richard Miller, in which you must rescue Rachel MacPherson by infiltrating the enemy complex and taking out all opposing units within the time limit. If you are shot too many times, then you die and your mission is failed. If you take too long, your mission is failed. There is little room for error if your mission is to be a success. (Exciting, isn’t it?)
Gameplay is fairly straight forward: point and shoot. The rest of the game is on rails. However, one of the much vaunted features of Time Crisis is the fact that you can duck through the push of a button. However, this feature is not a token one in that there are portions of the game that necessitate the use of this feature. Like the other legend of this genre (Virtua Cop 2), Time Crisis allows a great deal of interactivity with the environment. For instance, every pane of glass that is hit will shatter; any moveable object will be moveable, such as grand pianos, chandeliers, and so on. There are, however, some real dead giveaways in this game: the guys in red should be your first target, as they’re the marksmen; the guys in orange normally give you bonus extra time. One minus is that, unlike that latter-mentioned other-legend, Time Crisis only allows enough room for the use of one type of weapon.
The graphics in Time Crisis are quite acceptable. They are not the best, which is quite noticeable from the outset. They are, in fact, a little grainy and there is, in some rare instances, clipping of the polygons. However, the characters in the game are still very well animated and the game itself still runs silky smooth. So smooth, in fact, that load times are quite negligible. Some might be disappointed by the grainy-looking graphics when looking at a still-shot, but they really do the game no justice. It’s the motion and speed of the game that really compensate. The discrepancy in the graphics might be explained by the fact that the game itself is really HUGE. I’d imagine that similar sacrifices may have to be made for games like Tekken 3. However, it is the opinion of this particular reviewer that it is still quite acceptable.
The sounds of Time Crisis pay immaculate attention to detail. Every gunshot, hit, and the odd ricochet can be heard. Screams, crashes, explosions all accounted for. Even the sound of your gun can change in accordance with the acoustics of the area where you are shooting. Music-wise, the game is more than adequate. It is well orchestrated, and usually suits the particular circumstances that arise in the game quite well. There’s not much you’d want from the music anyway, since we’d all be concentrating on maintaining a consistent volley of gunshots.
In comparison to the arcade, Time Crisis has many ups and downs. The first, of course, is the graphics. And although it runs quite fast and smoothly, it does not run quite as fast as the arcade. Arcade fans might also be put off by the fact that there is no pedal to step on, but rather a button on the gun to press. The big plus, however, is the fact that an entirely new game has been included into the playstation version. And in this reviewer’s opinion, it shows off the capabilities of the playstation and the Gun.con (dealt with later) to much greater effect; and is even possibly better than the arcade version in terms of variety of gameplay. For instance, Richard also has to contend with giant spider-mechs. In fact, the extra game is quite similar in its gameplay variety to Virtua Cop 2.
The Gun.con deserves a special section of its own, as it really is what makes Time Crisis such an enjoyable game. The Gun.con comes specially packaged with Time Crisis (that should be the other way around), and hooks up to the playstation in both the controller port and the video-out jack, which allows for pin-point accuracy to the last pixel. This reviewer didn’t believe such claims, and is now $50 short for losing that bet. Like its arcade stick, Namco have gone back to the grass-roots of what a real controller should be like: none of the fancy autofire autoload programmable key rubbish that ends up spoiling the thing. Real gamesters don’t need that. The Gun.con is a solid gun that takes an original step forward from other guns in its approach to perhaps one of the most important aspects of a light gun: accuracy. The extra game in Time Crisis demonstrated that quality when I saw an enemy on the horizon, I looked straight down the barrel, and picked him off between the eyes. I’d like to see any other gun do that. There IS a downside to the gun though: the positioning of the buttons on the gun to facilitate the ducking feature is very badly placed - so badly that you can’t hold it like a real gun should be held. You end up holding it like an assault rifle, which is ridiculous for something that’s about 12 inches long. It takes a little getting used to. Either that or you play the game with your control pad which, having tried it myself, is impossible.
Overall, this game is a good buy. There ARE a number of downsides to this game, especially is you compare it to the arcade. But on its own, Time Crisis is still a phenomenal achievement for the playstation. It is a solid game, and the best shooter yet for the playstation. Don;t discount this game for its flaws, for its true magic can only be appreciated when you actually play it.
Good points:
- fast and smooth gameplay.
- high degree of accuracy of the Gun.con enhances the gameplay to no end.
- the extra game.
Bad points:
- grainy graphics when compared to the arcade and previous Namco games. However, they are still on par with Virtua Cop 2.
- the buttons on the Gun.con take a bit of getting used to. - there aren’t very many options to speak of. There aren’t even any sound or difficulty options.
- no FMV!