Time Crisis (series)

Time Crisis is a first-person light gun shooter series of arcade video games by Namco. The first installment of the series was released in the arcades in 1995 and later ported to the PlayStation consoles.^[1]

Overview

The setting of each Time Crisis revolves around a serious threat to the world. The VSSE, a covert organization, must send in its highly skilled agents to eliminate any security threats. The first Time Crisis had three stages with four screens (areas where fighting occurs) each. The second and third installment has three stages, each with three screens. The fourth installment adds a prologue with the three stages each with three screens. Many of the fighting areas are almost ludicrously unlikely, such as a steadily capsizing ship or a train dangling off of a damaged bridge. In the third and fourth installments, supporters from various organizations come in to assist the VSSE agents: sometimes to aid them in their mission, sometimes to protect their own reputations.

Crisis Zone has a different plot. It takes place in the United Kingdom and concerns the S.T.F. (or Special Tactical Force)'s attempt to destroy the U.R.D.A., a terrorist organization. Razing Storm and Time Crisis: Razing Storm, which take place in the near-future, involve an elite task force known as S.C.A.R. (Strategic Combat and Rescue) being sent to a South America country under a bloody revolution to capture the mastermind who has orchestrated an attack on the United States together with several international military organizations, while battling terrorists and other renegade soldiers that joined him.

Games

• The original Time Crisis was released for the arcades in 1995 and for the PlayStation in 1997.
• A followup exclusive to the PlayStation, Time Crisis: Project Titan, came out in 2001 featuring a new multihiding system. It serves as a side story to the first Time Crisis game.
• A two-player sequel, titled Time Crisis II, featured two machines linking together, allowing players to cover each other. Each player dispatches enemies on slightly different routes, creating unique environments to defend themselves on.
• The spin-off to this game, Crisis Zone (also supervised by Takashi Sano), was also produced. While Crisis Zone had similar play mechanics as with Time Crisis, Crisis Zone featured solo play with a fully automatic machine gun (as opposed to the standard pistol), interactive backgrounds, and a different storyline centering through the anti-terrorist tasks of elite S.T.F. trooper Claude McGarren (spelled "Croad MacGalain" in the arcade version). A PlayStation 2 remake of the title has been released in 2004 and is a subtitle to its full name, Time Crisis: Crisis Zone, likely to denote that the port had undergone major (if not total) cosmetic and technical changes.
• In 2003, Namco released a direct sequel called Time Crisis 3. It granted four different weapons available at the start (handgun, machine gun, shotgun and grenade launcher). The ammo of the latter three had to be recharged during play.
• In 2006, Time Crisis 4 was released in August and introduced a refined multihiding system (similar to the one featured in Time Crisis: Project Titan) where the player can move the gun in a certain direction to move the character's position in certain areas of the game regardless whether or not the player may hiding or attacking. A PlayStation 3 version was released in 2007 in the United States and Japan, and released a year after in other territority places. It was notable for introducing a first-person shooter mode to the series.
• Time Crisis Strike was released by Namco in January 2009 for the iPhone OS. It is actually an spin-off and alternate version of Time Crisis 3.
• In 2009, another spin-off game, Razing Storm was released. It was re-released in October 2010 under the name Time Crisis: Razing Storm exclusively for the PlayStation 3 with the PlayStation Move.
• Time Crisis 2nd Strike was released by Namco in September 2010 for the iPhone 4. It is the sequel of the Time Crisis spin-off and the alternate version of Time Crisis 4.

Gameplay

Time Crisis focuses on shooting all on-screen enemies when spotted in an area while taking cover. Successful players must proceed to the next area or level. The franchise's distinctive feature, a foot pedal, controls whether the player's character takes cover (and is thus invulnerable but unable to shoot) or attacks (which makes the player vulnerable). Players are required to take cover to reload their gun. A countdown clock, recharged by clearing an area and stage of enemies, forces the player to take risks by remaining vulnerable most of the time, shooting quickly at any enemy on sight.

This time limit prevents the player from taking cover indefinitely. In Time Crisis and Project Titan, after the clearance of an area the game adds only a partial amount of time to the clock while the timer keeps running down. The game ends if the timer reaches zero. In the two-player installments, the clock runs only when the player is fighting and makes his/her moves, with the timer resetting back to a certain amount of seconds when a portion of a battle area is cleared. Also, the player only loses one life when or if time runs out.

Hit detection

In the first Time Crisis, enemies fired "unannounced" direct hits, which caused problems because players did not know when they would be hit. Different-colored enemies provided different accuracy-levels (with red soldiers the most accurate). Project Titan attempted to address that problem using "different colored bullets", but this did not fix the "unannounced" direct hit problem. This problem was fixed in Time Crisis II; life-threatening shots are indicated with a red flash (known as a "deadly eye") which gives the player time to release the pedal. In Crisis Zone, enemies that are about to hit the player with a shot had a target icon on them, reminding the player to shoot them quickly or hide.

Characters

Each Time Crisis game features a different masculine protagonists (each of them a field agent of V.S.S.E.), supporters, and a military-oriented peace-keeping battalions:

• Richard Miller is featured in Time Crisis and Time Crisis: Project Titan as these games' only playable character, he locally known as One-man army. He will be confirming to return in Time Crisis 5, he is promoted as a captain throughout the game.
• Keith Martin is featured in Time Crisis II as the first playable character.
• Robert Baxter is featured in Time Crisis II as the second playable character.
• Alan Dunaway is featured in Time Crisis 3 as the first playable character.
• Wesley Lambert is featured in Time Crisis 3 as the second playable character.
• Alicia Winston is featured in Time Crisis 3 as an exclusive playable character to the PlayStation 2 version of the game although not playable at the arcades.
• Giorgio Bruno is featured in Time Crisis 4 as the first playable character, he makes a comeback in Time Crisis 2nd Strike.
• Evan Bernard is featured in Time Crisis 4 as the second playable character.
• 2 Unnamed V.S.S.E. trainees, often referred as the Mystery Characters are featured in Time Crisis 4 as an exclusive extra special playable character to the PlayStation 3 version of the game, confirming their names are John Martin and Rick Abdul are promoted to be the minor characters in Time Crisis 5, as they also serve Richard's loyal bodyguards.
• William Rush appears in Time Crisis 4 as an exclusive playable character to the PlayStation 3 version of the game. As with Alicia, Rush wasn't playable in the arcades, although he would sometimes appear in front of the player as a result of falling into a trap or diverting an enemies' attention. In either case, points are deducted for shooting him, guided by Elizabeth Conway.
• Claude McGarren is featured in Crisis Zone as the game's only playable character from the peace-keeping battalion, Special Tactical Force (S.T.F.).
• Strategic Combat and Rescue (S.C.A.R.) is an elite peace keeping group featured in Razing Storm and Time Crisis: Razing Storm with various playable characters across the board, revealling their names as Casey and King.

In addition, each Time Crisis game features a different set of chief antagonists:

Wild Dog

While the games have some contributing antagonists in addition to the aforementioned chief antagonists, all Time Crisis antagonists have employed and/or conspired with a mercenary named Wild Dog – the only character to appear in all of the main Time Crisis video games series. At the end of every battle, after the player has defeated him, he will detonate himself and appear to die. After Richard Miller defeated him, he dropped his detonator for the Castle and it blew up taking his left arm along with it. In Time Crisis Project Titan, Wild Dog outfitted it with a gatling gun arm (the "gun arm"), which would later receive upgrades such as a flamethrower and a rocket launcher in Time Crisis 3, and later a grappling hook and a tractor beam in Time Crisis 4. The character is inspired by Mad Dog, Philip Kwok's difficult to kill gunfighter from the film Hard Boiled. Wild Dog has other allies, including a younger partner (and apprentice) named Wild Fang (who appears in Time Crisis 3 and the PlayStation 3 port of Time Crisis 4):

• Sherudo Garo—whose plot provides the central focus in Time Crisis although he is not the main chief antagonist in the game in the second stage.
• Kantaris—who is the chief antagonist of Time Crisis in the extra story mode, and was in the first level of Time Crisis: Project Titan.
• Ricardo Blanco—whose plot is the central focus in Time Crisis: Project Titan although he is not the main chief antagonist in the game on the second stage.
• Ernesto Diaz — the chief antagonist of Time Crisis II.
• Giorgio Zott—who is the chief antagonist of Time Crisis 3
• Jake Hernandez—who is the chief antagonist in the PlayStation 2 edition of Time Crisis 3
• Gregory Barrows—who is the chief antagonist of Time Crisis 4, his plot is shrouded in mystery and must be discovered during in-gameplay.
• Derrick Lynch, the chief antagonist of Crisis Zone is the U.R.D.A.'s leader. He wants to destroy London with the Garland Square's nuclear reactor, Geyser One. He is named after one of Time Crisis's creators.
• Jared Hunter—who is the chief antagonist of the Crisis Zone side storyline, the Grassmarket District crisis. He kidnaps the S.T.F. Commander's daughter, Melissa Kessler, and plans to avenge Derrick Lynch.
• Paulo Guerra—the chief antagonist in Razing Storm. Guerra is portrayed as a madman whose plot is revealed in the PlayStation 3 version of the game.
• Wild Dog at the Internet Movie Database

External links

1. ^ http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=time-crisis&page=detail&id=2903