Time Crisis: Razing Storm
Time Crisis: Razing Storm is a collection of three on-rails arcade light-gun games which utilise either the PlayStation Move or GunCon 3. It includes Razing Storm, Time Crisis 4 Arcade Edition and Deadstorm Pirates.
When I first turned on Time Crisis: Razing Storm, I felt a wave of nostalgic sadness. Although the three games included on the disc are relatively new, they are representative of a genre closely associated with the now largely defunct arcade industry.
These games are meant to be played on large DLP screens with sticky, rattling brightly coloured gun controllers and a metal pedal under your feet. They are arcade staples, and the genre has always had a rocky relationship with home consoles.
Back in the days of CRT tube televisions, it was possible to replicate the gun technology used in arcades, but most people were then limited to a tiny, low-resolution screen.
Nowadays everybody has a fairly large flatscreen, but the technology involved doesn’t work with LCD. So we’re stuck in a middle ground with motion controllers such as the Move, which kind of misses the point.
Because when I play Razing Storm, I consistently get headshot after headshot with the aid of an on-screen reticule, can continue my progress without jamming another pound coin in the machine and finish the whole shallow experience in a half hour.
Arcades are dead, which is sad, but their death is in part due to the fact that videogames have grown up. Games like Time Crisis aren’t really worth it anymore.
They were fine in a brightly-coloured, noisy room filled with dozens of their kind and a specially made gun-controller in your hand, but now the experience can not only be replicated, but bettered, at home, they feel like videogame dinosaurs, designed to take your money and only mastered by those who memorise everyone of their static, ridiculous settings down to each and every cheap trick.
There is still some fun to be had in these games, especially if you play with a friend, but in the same way there’s some enjoyment in watching a bad B-movie.
Time Crisis 4 is the most polished but most difficult of the bunch, and originally progressed the genre forward when it was first released in 2007. Rather than a static corridor after corridor, here at least you can switch weapons, make limited decisions and sometimes switch between multiple screens defending a set point.
Still, it’s like putting a new paint job, turbo chargers and spoilers on a Reliant Robin; good for a laugh but ultimately pointless.
Razing Storm itself foregoes the duck and cover mechanics of Time Crisis past, instead giving you a shield and endless ammo to destroy the world around you. It largely plays the same, but is a more visceral and exciting affair.
Deadstorm Pirates is an oddity and seems out of place alongside its military sci-fi brethren. You play as pirates with strangely over-powered weaponry for the period battling monstrous bad-guys and steering your ship. It’s all very Pirates of the Caribbean, but at it least looks good.
In arcades the game featured hydraulic seats which replicated the swells and waves of the ocean and a steering wheel you must frantically spin to navigate your ship, further compounding the disconnect between home and arcade.
I can only recommend Time Crisis: Razing Storm to hardcore fans of the genre. Unlike on-rails games made for the home, such as Dead Space: Extraction and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, there’s not enough change to the core genre mechanics to make these titles worthwhile.
They’re all competent but pointless. There is still some fun to be have, but this ride is ultimately not worth the price of admission.
Verdict: 5/10
Platform: PlayStation 3
Genre: Shooter
Developer/Publisher: Namco Bandai
Release: 05/11/10
FemaleFirst Michael Moran