Dateline : 22nd November 2011

 

The end is in sight and now is the time to roll out some of the good stuff. Roll around your living room and pop out to shoot the bad guys, it’s Time Crisis…..

 

The mighty G-Con 45 and Time Crisis - a formidable partnership

Nothing captures the gamer’s imagination more than a giant, hulking arcade cabinet. Those with all the flashy bells and knobs on – cabinets shaped like cars, those with hydraulic mechanisms and those with plastic Uzi 9mms bolted on to them – were likely to gobble up more 20p’s than standard stand up versions. Whether they were any good or not, gamers were lured in by the bells-and-whistles and kept coming back in their droves. The mention of cabinets with mounted guns brings us to our next entry.

 

Operation Wolf probably defines that game best of all. With it’s Rambo-esque opening sequence and death message of “You have sustained a fatal injury” (Yes thank you for pointing that out) had you pumping more 20p’s in as you wanted to get that bit further into the game. It was a very good game too and had many fine home conversions to go with it. Namco decided a few years later that they could improve on this, by adding a few extra bits and pieces to make this run-and-gun genre a little more interesting, and thus Time Crisis was born.

 

Its fast and furious and all against the clock

 

All these types of games, to this point, had one major fatal flaw. It was impossible to avoid enemy fire unless you got to them first, and that wasn’t always easy. By adding a pedal to the arcade cabinet you were now able to hide behind objects, therefore allowing you the time to choose the right moment to leap from behind a crate all guns blazing. The gun for the game was no longer mounted and allowed you free and easy movement when making your shots. Firing off screen reloaded the gun and eliminated the need to shoot objects along the way in order to get more ammunition. Throw in a time limit for each section of the level and it really was a race against the clock.

 

This is what set Time Crisis apart from the rest of that genre. More freedom for the gamer equalled a more satisfying and fun experience. You could even have 2 players at the same time and this paved the way for more exciting games to come into the market, like The House Of The Dead Series and Virtua Cop. So, when the chance to transfer the success of Time Crisis to the PS2 came about, once again the boffins went to work to make the conversion a success.

 

Time attack gaming is never usually as much fun as this

 

Thus the Namco G-Con 45 light gun adaptor was produced and my word what a rather fabulous piece of kit it was. It was lightweight and responsive, something which light guns had not been to that point. Aside from the trigger there was also a button on the side of the gun which activated the hide feature of the arcade game. Throw in some pretty adequate graphics and the excellent game play and you had a cracking little conversion which sold very well.

 

Time Crisis has now spawned three sequels with the latest once being transferred to the PS3. It’s a game series that revolutionised that ilk of games, whilst at the same time providing some exciting home gun action for those in need of it. This is most definitely worth a revisit with a decent learning curve, although anyone with an eye for this sort of game should blast through it with very few problems.

 

So make time for Time Crisis, it really is worth it.

 

VERDICT : Gun toting, bad guy popping, action entertainment of a very high standard. Make sure you get the G-Con peripheral to get the full experience.

 

NOTES : You can buy the game and gun for £8.00 on Amazon. On eBay this package sees bidding start from 99p whilst a complete set on Buy It Now will cost you £12.99

 

UP NEXT : The good stuff didn’t last – it’s Dragons Lair on the SNES