Time Crisis 5

[gameoverDude]

Arcade Heroes: Bandai Namco Amusements announces Time Crisis 5

Finally. This means more to me than Namco's Star Wars Battle Pod, and that's something.

Time Crisis 5 will introduce a double pedal system. While the original cover system seems to be in there, you can also flank shielded enemies to circumvent their defense. The gun has a button on it for switching weapons without the need to hide. Unless you count Razing Storm, this is the first TC game to use a 16:10 screen.

While it will launch with three stages, that will be doubled eventually.

Graphically TC5 smokes RS at least from screen shots. The hardware is probably some PC setup (either Namco System ES3 or 478). I'm thinking 478 is generic PC hardware made to approximate PS4's spec. Hopefully it can maintain a solid 60 FPS, which even Razing Storm failed to do. The prices are $18,000 (for the fullsize one) and $9000 for a smaller one.

This will be the game that sells me a PS4. Namco is probably planning what they'll do with it for PS4, but hopefully they'll introduce an extra 2-pedal controller.

[ACSeraph]

I want this to be good, but 4 and RS were pretty terrible imo. 4 is a big step back from 3, and RS just simply didn't feel tight like Crisis Zone. I love the series though so I'll try to be optimistic about the arcade release.

I have no hope for the console version though, not really Namco's fault, but the PS Move is one of the shittiest pieces of gaming tech I've ever had the misfortune of owning. It's laughably bad for light gun games with the horrible cursor drift. Even the Wii did an infinitely better job with motion control light gun games.

I doubt we will ever again see a home TC experience on par with the originals Via a Hori Beretta and pedal CRT setup.

[Pretas]

I have no hope for the console version though, not really Namco's fault, but the PS Move is one of the shittiest pieces of gaming tech I've ever had the misfortune of owning. It's laughably bad for light gun games with the horrible cursor drift. Even the Wii did an infinitely better job with motion control light gun games.

It's not as good as the GunCon 3 or Wii Remote but it's not "laughably bad." I 1CCed HotD4 using a Move with the official gun attachment.

The PS4 natively supports Move, but there isn't a single game that uses it yet. Sony seems to have abandoned it in favor of Project Morpheus and the light bar on the DualShock 4.

[ACSeraph]

In a game like HotD 4 you have a machine gun, it doesn't require the tight precision of TC. That cursor drift is a deal breaker. At least the Wii doesn't have any issues like that. There's always the possibility the PS4 revision of the Move might suck less though.

[Pretas]

There would be no point to revising the Move hardware itself. It doesn't have an IR pointer like the Wii Remote, the glowing orb at the end is just a light. It's the camera that does all the work for tracking the device's position.

If Sony released new software that optimized the PS4 camera for Move support, it could potentially work better.

[cj iwakura]

As much as the series gets worse each time(bring back the first's TIME based gameplay, thanks), will play for more Wild Dog.

[Skykid]

Agree with Seraph completely. 1-3 are great fun but 4 was a significant step back. The only Crisis game I declined to clear. I hope this is much much better.

[gameoverDude]

At least TC4 did do away with the hit streak bonus system from TC3. Missing a shot is not so punishing to your score, because you get your accuracy rate x 1000 pts. as part of your area clear bonus. When you miss a shot in TC3, it's almost like breaking a Dodonpachi combo.

One thing Crisis Zone does have over RS is the framerate. CZ holds 60 FPS at all times.
If Sony drops Move support, Namco could make a Guncon 4 with optional wireless play. If so, I hope they make it so you don't have to stand back so damn far to use it. (*cough* Guncon 3)

Having to hold a button atop the Move controller to lower your shield in RS is a tad awkward (you can set the button to RAISE the shield but that's still a pain), and hopefully Namco thinks about that when porting TC5. Like I said, the solution to that is a pedal controller which would also come in handy for racing games if you use Move to control them.

I wouldn't mind a Time Crisis Complete pack with all 5 TCs. The first four could be direct arcade ports, and the gameplay inaccuracies in TC4's PS3 port fixed. You can easily full combo the office Terror Bite scene on the arcade TC4, but on the PS3 version it's not just harder... it's IMPOSSIBLE because of a difference in timing. Also, grenading the flying swarms gives you fewer points on PS3. And if you play in a res higher than 640 x 480, you get slowdown.

TC1 is harder than the others. It is the only one in the series that I have not 1CCed.

[Skykid]

TC1 is easy. First one I cleared in the arcade as a kid, countless times. 2 is possibly easier until the last stage. 3 is definitely harder than its predecessors and 4 harder still.

I actually think Crisis Zone was the fastest 1cc I achieved in the series.

But scoring aside, 4 is ugly, crap, poorly paced and boring, implementing original ideas that probably worked better on paper.

EDIT:

How have they managed to regress the VSSE agents so seriously from the first game. I know Richard Miller was kind of casual, and those two chaps in the follow up even moreso - but they still kind of had an 'agent' thing going on. In TC4 they're footballers sporting the latest Italian fashions and now... a skateboarder?

[Mortificator]

AMS is better at maintaining professionalism, though they occasionally allow daisy dukes.

Doesn't it seem like two pedals would be awkward to use unless you're sitting down? Hopefully this is something the devs researched to make sure it's fun, not a gimmick they were compelled to go with.

[system11]

Could be fun in the arcades, but gun games at home are pretty much dead - motion controls just don't have the accuracy.

[boagman]

Doesn't it seem like two pedals would be awkward to use unless you're sitting down?

I had the same thought, but I was basing it on believing that the two pedals would have to be used simultaneously, which is probably not the case, and therefore wouldn't require sitting down. It's probably more likely that you just need to be cognizant of which pedal you're using/about to use, giving you another thing to think about during play. In effect, it's like having another important button on a controller which didn't exist before. You've got to change up the way you play the game in order to effectively beat the game at its own rules.

Does that sound like a reasonable theory? I'm actually kind of excited about the game...after the suckage that is/was TC4, I'll be happy if they can reach anywhere close to the greatness of TC2/3 or Crisis Zone (which I also loved).

To the original TC supporter: though I thought pretty highly of the original TC at the time, two things were major problems with it which were addressed immediately in TC2:

1. Player could not determine danger of any bullets shot toward them. While you could count on RPGs to always nail you, or the "DANGER" stuff to do the same, bullets from enemies were complete question marks as to whether they'd hit you or not, leaving things like battles against Wild Dog to be basically guess-feats. Not really fair to the player, they came up with the red flash to indicate what was going to be fatal, which was more than fair to me.

2. The time aspect was sorely unfair, clock-wise. It's not that I had a problem with the clock per se, it's that the clock *penalty* was so very, very wrong. I'll even go so far as to allow that letting time expire should end the game immediately, if that's important to you. Here's the issue I had more than once: you're on the last stage, and your game ends from getting killed by the enemy. Continue screen pops up: and the problem presents itself. You're basically going to be continuing twice, since your clock is almost at zero anyway, and on the machines I played, either no time was added, or very little time was added with a continue from being shot, so you can very easily have a ten second game and WHOOPS! It's time to continue again. That's not fair: if you're going to have the game end from the clock hitting zero (again, fair), when the continue is bought, the player *must* receive *both* full hit points *and* a full clock again. Nothing less. In the original TC, that wasn't the case, and it wasn't fair as a result. I think that they actually went a little too far in the player's advantage with the change in TC2 (clock expiration only takes away one hit point from the player), but better that than the other.

[Smraedis]

I feel like the series always has to add something else to the previous game, so they've gone for 2 pedals.

Of course I'm interested in this, finally a new light gun game to learn.

I feel like the Guncon 3 was good enough, and the Razing Storm and DeadStorm Pirates ports worked with that, much better than the Move controller.

Like said previously, the scoring in Time Crisis 4 is what makes the game, I didn't enjoy it that much for quite some time, until I started learning how to get 7 million on it. The old style scoring works well in TC2, but is just frustrating in TC3. CZ and RS just require you to be as fast as you can to score high, so if you like the TC1 scoring, then play those!

[boagman]

Like said previously, the scoring in Time Crisis 4 is what makes the game, I didn't enjoy it that much for quite some time, until I started learning how to get 7 million on it. The old style scoring works well in TC2, but is just frustrating in TC3. CZ and RS just require you to be as fast as you can to score high, so if you like the TC1 scoring, then play those!

I thought TC4 was a giant step back for the series. I couldn't stand the play of the thing, and the soul appeared to be long lost, which, considering that it was just the next one in line in the series, was a major disappointment. Perhaps there was some scoring interest to be found, but digging that deep required actually getting involved in the game in a more-than-cursory sense, which I wasn't willing to do based on my initial experiences with the play of the thing.

Oddly, I've never played RS. Not so great, then?

[gameoverDude]

I feel like the series always has to add something else to the previous game, so they've gone for 2 pedals.

Of course I'm interested in this, finally a new light gun game to learn.

I feel like the Guncon 3 was good enough, and the Razing Storm and DeadStorm Pirates ports worked with that, much better than the Move controller.

Like said previously, the scoring in Time Crisis 4 is what makes the game, I didn't enjoy it that much for quite some time, until I started learning how to get 7 million on it. The old style scoring works well in TC2, but is just frustrating in TC3. CZ and RS just require you to be as fast as you can to score high, so if you like the TC1 scoring, then play those!

Hopefully a PS4 will be on my TV stand waiting for this when the home version is out.

TC4's scoring is fine. While combos help, just keep in mind that you need to be pulling in more than 2400 points a second when you combo (or 4800 in a 2P game). You can combo well in helicopter stages if you have the mounted MG, but the automatic cannon isn't so good for this because it takes fewer hits to destroy something. And the HTRA soldiers are best dealt with by machine gun for the purpose of racking up hits- the first two serve as target practice, firing wildly but somehow not being able to hit you. The ones seen in stage 2 are almost like a midboss, having greater accuracy.

Combos help in RS, and if you can pull off an 800+ hit combo when given a chance, it will make a difference at the section score tally. One thing that's good in RS is that continuing does cost some (but not all) of your points. What you have earned so far in a section is wiped out if you do continue.

If Namco isn't pleased with Move controls, they just might bring out a Guncon 4 with a newer IR system. I'd pay $100 for a decently built gun+pedal set.

[system11]

I think the Guncon version that shipped with the TC4 port was pretty much useless too, huge amounts of latency only made worse by the hopeless 30fps frame rate.

[Skykid]

Doesn't it seem like two pedals would be awkward to use unless you're sitting down?

I had the same thought, but I was basing it on believing that the two pedals would have to be used simultaneously, which is probably not the case, and therefore wouldn't require sitting down. It's probably more likely that you just need to be cognizant of which pedal you're using/about to use, giving you another thing to think about during play. In effect, it's like having another important button on a controller which didn't exist before. You've got to change up the way you play the game in order to effectively beat the game at its own rules.

Does that sound like a reasonable theory? I'm actually kind of excited about the game...after the suckage that is/was TC4, I'll be happy if they can reach anywhere close to the greatness of TC2/3 or Crisis Zone (which I also loved).

To the original TC supporter: though I thought pretty highly of the original TC at the time, two things were major problems with it which were addressed immediately in TC2:

1. Player could not determine danger of any bullets shot toward them. While you could count on RPGs to always nail you, or the "DANGER" stuff to do the same, bullets from enemies were complete question marks as to whether they'd hit you or not, leaving things like battles against Wild Dog to be basically guess-feats. Not really fair to the player, they came up with the red flash to indicate what was going to be fatal, which was more than fair to me.

2. The time aspect was sorely unfair, clock-wise. It's not that I had a problem with the clock per se, it's that the clock *penalty* was so very, very wrong. I'll even go so far as to allow that letting time expire should end the game immediately, if that's important to you. Here's the issue I had more than once: you're on the last stage, and your game ends from getting killed by the enemy. Continue screen pops up: and the problem presents itself. You're basically going to be continuing twice, since your clock is almost at zero anyway, and on the machines I played, either no time was added, or very little time was added with a continue from being shot, so you can very easily have a ten second game and WHOOPS! It's time to continue again. That's not fair: if you're going to have the game end from the clock hitting zero (again, fair), when the continue is bought, the player *must* receive *both* full hit points *and* a full clock again. Nothing less. In the original TC, that wasn't the case, and it wasn't fair as a result. I think that they actually went a little too far in the player's advantage with the change in TC2 (clock expiration only takes away one hit point from the player), but better that than the other.

Disagree with much of this.

Time Crisis is the only game in the series that lives up to its name. It's also probably the leanest and tautest of them all, and tests you perfectly with the pressure of the timer, forcing you to play a tighter game and learn speed tactics to conserve precious seconds.

That said it is easy. Once learned I couldn't lose in the game, and unlike the give of its successors, you simply need to preempt red enemy bullets.

The Wild Dog fight isn't a 'guess-feat' at all, you just need to learn to pedal drop while firing.

That said I only ever played the Crisis games in the arcade, so if you're basing your experience on console versions there may be issues I don't know about - but I remember the port playing pretty well.

[boagman]

Time Crisis is the only game in the series that lives up to its name. It's also probably the leanest and tautest of them all, and tests you perfectly with the pressure of the timer, forcing you to play a tighter game and learn speed tactics to conserve precious seconds.

That said it is easy. Once learned I couldn't lose in the game, and unlike the give of its successors, you simply need to preempt red enemy bullets.

The Wild Dog fight isn't a 'guess-feat' at all, you just need to learn to pedal drop while firing.

That said I only ever played the Crisis games in the arcade, so if you're basing your experience on console versions there may be issues I don't know about - but I remember the port playing pretty well.

I really don't know what you mean by your statement "you simply need to preempt red enemy bullets". Are you saying that only bullets from red enemies will hit you? Because I can assure you that it isn't true. Expound on that a bit for me, as I find it confusing.

And I disagree with the Wild Dog fight not being a guess-fest. There've been many times I've risen up from a ducking position only to be shot *immediately* without the ability to do so much as get a shot off. I'd need to see you in action to know what you're talking about, I guess.

And I'm referring to the arcade version, not the console version. I think we're in agreement over the time penalty, but I think that it's patently unfair to end a game for whatever the reason, have the player continue, and then in 10 seconds have to continue again because they didn't get a fresh clock with their paid continue. Adding money should equate to a fresh clock IMHO. Time runs out, or you lose all your life points, you're paying to continue, period. In any paid continue, though, the clock *must* reset in order to be fair to the player.

[Smraedis]

Oddly, I've never played RS. Not so great, then?

Wouldn't really say that, the game is enjoyable, especially with the gun controller in the arcade. The scoring less so good, most of your score is made from clearing the game quickly. Dropping any combo on the first two bosses impacts a lot, and failing the sniper section on 3-1 really ruins your score. If I fail the 3-1 section in my arcade, I know I'm not going to get on the top 10 scores...

The issues with time on TC1 was fixed on TC2, giving you full time if you get hit. Must add that I haven't ran out of time on TC1 since my first few credits when the game first came out, and I wasn't even good at the games back then.
In relation to the Wild Dog fight on TC1, it's pretty simple, every shot he does will hit you, but if you release the pedal sometimes while being hit, you'll just get the yellow/red flash. There are much more unfair parts in the game, like in the part on 2-1 with the enemies with shields, getting hit while an enemy is not even shooting is bad.
The PS1 port is not too accurate, the worst thing is shooting on the first possible frame when coming out of cover, and the game just takes a bullet away and nothing else.

[cj iwakura]

At least TC4 did do away with the hit streak bonus system from TC3. Missing a shot is not so punishing to your score, because you get your accuracy rate x 1000 pts. as part of your area clear bonus. When you miss a shot in TC3, it's almost like breaking a Dodonpachi combo.

One thing Crisis Zone does have over RS is the framerate. CZ holds 60 FPS at all times.
If Sony drops Move support, Namco could make a Guncon 4 with optional wireless play. If so, I hope they make it so you don't have to stand back so damn far to use it. (*cough* Guncon 3)

Having to hold a button atop the Move controller to lower your shield in RS is a tad awkward (you can set the button to RAISE the shield but that's still a pain), and hopefully Namco thinks about that when porting TC5. Like I said, the solution to that is a pedal controller which would also come in handy for racing games if you use Move to control them.

I wouldn't mind a Time Crisis Complete pack with all 5 TCs. The first four could be direct arcade ports, and the gameplay inaccuracies in TC4's PS3 port fixed. You can easily full combo the office Terror Bite scene on the arcade TC4, but on the PS3 version it's not just harder... it's IMPOSSIBLE because of a difference in timing. Also, grenading the flying swarms gives you fewer points on PS3. And if you play in a res higher than 640 x 480, you get slowdown.

TC1 is harder than the others. It is the only one in the series that I have not 1CCed.

I used to have competitions with people for time attack in TC1. It's a blast, and I love how if you continue, your chances at a high time are SHOT. It's just about impossible to recover from the time lost during the continue timer(since it never stops).

And I definitely agree with it being the tautest of the series. I vastly prefer looking for fast ways to clear a room rather than a shoot-em-up fest.Time is never a threat in 2-4. since it constantly resets to a set time.

[Skykid]

Time Crisis is the only game in the series that lives up to its name. It's also probably the leanest and tautest of them all, and tests you perfectly with the pressure of the timer, forcing you to play a tighter game and learn speed tactics to conserve precious seconds.

That said it is easy. Once learned I couldn't lose in the game, and unlike the give of its successors, you simply need to preempt red enemy bullets.

The Wild Dog fight isn't a 'guess-feat' at all, you just need to learn to pedal drop while firing.

That said I only ever played the Crisis games in the arcade, so if you're basing your experience on console versions there may be issues I don't know about - but I remember the port playing pretty well.

I really don't know what you mean by your statement "you simply need to preempt red enemy bullets". Are you saying that only bullets from red enemies will hit you? Because I can assure you that it isn't true. Expound on that a bit for me, as I find it confusing.

And I disagree with the Wild Dog fight not being a guess-fest. There've been many times I've risen up from a ducking position only to be shot *immediately* without the ability to do so much as get a shot off. I'd need to see you in action to know what you're talking about, I guess.

And I'm referring to the arcade version, not the console version. I think we're in agreement over the time penalty, but I think that it's patently unfair to end a game for whatever the reason, have the player continue, and then in 10 seconds have to continue again because they didn't get a fresh clock with their paid continue. Adding money should equate to a fresh clock IMHO. Time runs out, or you lose all your life points, you're paying to continue, period. In any paid continue, though, the clock *must* reset in order to be fair to the player.

Oh I didn't understand that. I don't know about continue penalties because I never continued.

Wild Dog I assume you're talking about the well.rotating section? Not a guess fest at all, I can clip him 99% of the time. The point isn't to pop up and risk being shot, it's to wait until he pops up, drop the pedal and on your way down put a round in his face. Repeat three times.

Honestly it's fair n' square, perfectly learnable and not overly difficult.

As for the red enemies they're the only ones you need to drop into cover for. The others can be pinged out in the seconds you enter the screen. Sometimes it's a strat to punch out half the offenders, duck the red bullet and then finish off the remainder.

Really, the whole TC series bar 4 is pretty easy, and 1 isn't much of an exception.

[gameoverDude]

TC4 does reset the length of your combo bar if you continue.

One change on the PS3 version of TC4 during the Wild Dog battle: When Wild Dog is whipping things around with the gravity gun, the arcade version will highlight the objects that are about to hit you. Not so on the PS3.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Even the Wii did an infinitely better job with motion control light gun games.

Wii did a bloody brilliant job with at least Ghost Squad (at 30 fps, but it works) and HotD2&3, with or without gun accessory. I don't think there's ever been any better system for the task.

[Mortificator]

I'm glad the later Time Crisis games are less anal about the "time" part of the title, since running out of time is one of the least interesting ways to lose an action game.

In the middle of an intense firefight, a mercenary checks his watch.

Wild Dog: Hey, Miller! TIME'S UP!!!
Richard Miller: Aw, maaaann!

He then hangs his head and walks off. You can't tell me that's more climactic than going down in a storm of bullets.

TC2 instead ramps up the crisis and puts you in varied and outrageous situations. A game can benefit from having a focused locale (see: the original House of the Dead), but while the castle in TC1 isn't bad, it isn't too exciting either.

[boagman]

I'm glad the later Time Crisis games are less anal about the "time" part of the title, since running out of time is one of the least interesting ways to lose an action game. You can't tell me that's more climactic than going down in a storm of bullets.

And I'm going to disagree with you here. The ever-present and increasingly important clock in the original TC is one of the best ways the game balanced the use of the pedal for safety. The pedal was brilliant, but it's pretty much a chicken move, ain't it? There needs to be *something* which compels the player to actually take chances, hurry up, and employ tactics that might not be what they'd necessarily choose to go with in an optimal situation. You need to be *thinking* about the clock, since there really ain't much of it to spare. You need to keep on the lookout for the yellow enemies for extra time, you need to remember where the next "time add" is, and if you're looking for some kind of plot necessity for the presence/importance of the clock, well...didn't they steal a nuke or something, and they were going to launch it?

There you go. All better now.

[Skykid]

I'm glad the later Time Crisis games are less anal about the "time" part of the title, since running out of time is one of the least interesting ways to lose an action game. You can't tell me that's more climactic than going down in a storm of bullets.

And I'm going to disagree with you here. The ever-present and increasingly important clock in the original TC is one of the best ways the game balanced the use of the pedal for safety. The pedal was brilliant, but it's pretty much a chicken move, ain't it? There needs to be *something* which compels the player to actually take chances, hurry up, and employ tactics that might not be what they'd necessarily choose to go with in an optimal situation. You need to be *thinking* about the clock, since there really ain't much of it to spare. You need to keep on the lookout for the yellow enemies for extra time, you need to remember where the next "time add" is, and if you're looking for some kind of plot necessity for the presence/importance of the clock, well...didn't they steal a nuke or something, and they were going to launch it?

There you go. All better now.

This.

Anyone who's raced through TC1 and learned to optimise their gun strats and precision, especially on the last stage when tiny tricky dudes in the distance attempt to swallow precious seconds from the clock only for you to cap them in the head as they go for a sneaky dash between obstacles, is really what made the game so special. After TC1 they just became gun games with a pedal mechanic and a few shared characteristics.

It's worth mentioning that the PSX only mode is really great too, with diverging paths and similarly excellent pacing.

[BrianC]

I really need to get a Guncon 2 so I can play TC2 the right way (already have the game).

[xxx1993]

As much as the series gets worse each time(bring back the first's TIME based gameplay, thanks), will play for more Wild Dog.

What is it with you and the hate for the series? There is NOTHING wrong with it.

[Pretas]

What is it with you and the hate for the series? There is NOTHING wrong with it.

He doesn't hate the series, he's just expressing the rational viewpoint that it's declined over time. I agree, except that TC1 isn't better than TC2. You know that it's possible to like something and recognize its flaws at the same time, right?

[Despatche]

i know i don't know, because people swear that matters of taste are flaws and that actual game design problems are mere opinions, all the time, about so many creative works. people way too much stock in themes in aesthetic and very little in actual game design. people act as if "recognizing flaws in their favorite things" will save them, except they don't really understand what makes a flaw. so on and so forth

I thought TC4 was a giant step back for the series. I couldn't stand the play of the thing, and the soul appeared to be long lost, which, considering that it was just the next one in line in the series, was a major disappointment. Perhaps there was some scoring interest to be found, but digging that deep required actually getting involved in the game in a more-than-cursory sense, which I wasn't willing to do based on my initial experiences with the play of the thing.

scoring is an upfront and integral part of gameplay, not some hidden easter egg for the so-called "hardcore". themes service gameplay, not the other way around; if you're putting themes over gameplay for any reason, you need to completely reconceptualize how you approach video games