Classic of the Month - Time Crisis

Manufacturer:	Namco
Genre:	Light gun
Board:	System 22
Year:	1995

The year is 1996 and I am failing my degree in computer science.  There are a number of factors contributing to this disaster, such as I lived 17 miles from the uni and spent a lot of time commuting; the course was fluffed up with irrelevant modules such as European History and German that did not interest me; I was drinking too much, relying on mid-afternoon lectures to sleep in and sober up.  Between lectures I sought solice in a number of off-campus locations, which included a Namco Station arcade situated in the old market square in Nottingham city centre.  The Namco Station was the best arcade in the city, with such modern classics as Sega Rally, Tekken II, Puzzle Bobble, Sonic Blast Man and Namco's own Time Crisis.

The plot for Time Crisis was familiar stuff.  Fallen royalty, Sherudo Garo, employs mercenary Wild Dog to kidnap the president of Sercia's daughter, Rachel McPherson, in exchange for military secrets.  You play as VSSE agent Richard Miller--known as the One Man Army--who is sent into Garo's castle to gun down every henchman and minion you see and rescue Rachel.

There had been on-rails shooting games since the earliest days of coin-op gaming, but Time Crisis's combination of a gun with recoil and a cover system made it feel like the most immersive yet - even if the gun was bright pink, thanks to its origins with the Point Blank series.  The cover system was a stroke of genius.  Appearing more than a decade before Gears of War, the cabinets had a foot pedal, which the player had to stamp on to take cover behind whatever they were stood behind at the time, be it a crate, a wall or a pillar.  It gave players a sense of control that games like Taito's Operation Wolf (1987) and Atari's Area 51 (also 1995) simply didn't provide.  The two player mode was great too, because rather than have your characters stand side-by-side, you took up different positions on the map, so you were still taking down the same enemies, but from opposite sides of the room.  This crossfire created an additional peril, as it was possible to shoot each other, providing a great opportunity to grief your mates - if you were that way inclined.

The game was a huge success, spawning ports to home consoles and a whole industry of 3rd party light guns.  I can remember back in 1998, buying it for my Sony PlayStation, along with a light gun that actually had a recoil (unlike Namco's official G-Con gun).  I played a couple of games, then let my 10 year-old nephew have a go.  The light gun caught fire in his hand, which he quickly dropped before he got burnt.  It scared the crap out of us all and needless to say, when I took the melted mess back to the shop I did not have a replacement.

Over the years Namco produced numerous sequels, with increasingly elaborate light guns, but none recaptured the magic of the original. Let's take a look, shall we?

MTW