Time Crisis 4 Review (PS3)

PS3 Crisis as Wii do better light gun games!

Light Gun games: at one time you could only play the likes of Time Crisis and Area 51 either at your local Arcade (Remember them!) or on the Playstation. With the advent of the PS2, we had a Guncon 2 to shoot at the tv, with the like s of Time Crisis 2 & 3 as well as Ninja Assault. Things seemed to go quiet on the light gun front for home console.

Once you begin, you forget about all the niggles and start loving Time Crisis again

That was until developers realised the Wii Remote works a bit like a light gun (even though it looks more like a light sabre!). Add a piece of flimsy plastic; call it a Zapper, then the light gun games will come flooding in. And they did.
Recently we have had the awesome Ghost Squad, Resi: Umbrella Chronicles and a repackaged House of the Dead 2 & 3.As well as Link’s Crossbow Training that was packaged along with the Zapper.

Now all the Sony fanboys have been eagerly awaiting Time Crisis 4 and the Guncom 3. Well, the wait is finally over. (This game was released in PAL regions around 6 months after it’s US & Japanese release.). So, is it any good?

A quick glance at the low score above will tell you that it is not in fact the greatest light gun game ever. Now where to start, ok�Let us start with the actual Guncon 3, firstly it is orange, and it has a growth on the side with an analogue stick on it. It actually makes the Zapper look cool! Secondly, how come it’s still got a cable attached to it.
Everything else for the PS3 is bluetooth and wireless, this seems to be a step back from the Guncon 2. Next up, you have to place 2 infrared sensors over the top of your tv screen, attached to a thin wire that you drape across the top of yer telly, and make sure the knot in the middle is at the middle of your screen! So I hope you are not using a 47inch plasma that is fixed to the wall!

Time Crisis 4Now on the positive side, once set up and calibrated, I found this to be the most accurate light gun I have used for some time, much better than the Wii Zapper. Although, all you left handed people out there may as well not bother getting this�the Guncon 3 has been designed by right handed people, for right handed people (we’ll have no trouble here!)

To the game itself. We have two modes of play (and one of the most stoopid plots ever..Soo stoopid I am not going to try and explain it!). The first and most familiar is good old traditional Arcade mode. Fast and furious. Once you begin, you forget about all the niggles and start loving Time Crisis again. Popping up from behind stuff to “pop a cap” in wave after wave of faceless terrorist goon. The only major flaw in this mode is the fact that if you lose all your lives�it’s back to the beginning of the whole game, with no save points offered.

New to the franchise, is the addition of a first person mode (not available at the arcades), but this is so rubbish, I just cant be bothered explaining it to you. It is just broken, with no cohesion, the worst AI I have ever seen, and about as fun as watching high school musical on a loop for a month.

Time Crisis 4If Namco could have made the arcade mode longer and added some kind of save game option(and removed the annoying Terror bites) then this may have been a contender as best light gun game for the next gen (currently held by Ghost Squad). As it is, its just an expensive, over confusing mess of a game, but I guess if you only own a PS3 (and not a Wii), and love some lightgun action, then you may get something out of this(and add another couple of numbers to the score)

The Good: Arcade mode is classic Time Crisis, Guncon 3 is very accurate.
The Bad: FPS mode is pants, Guncon 3 is Orange, not wireless and looks rubbish.


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3 3 / 5

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