The lightgun genre is not what it used to be. Five years ago it was a defi nite fan favourite, with the likes of Vampire Night, Virtua Cop: Elite Edition and, of course, Time Crisis II and 3 pleasing PS2 gamers the world over. However, as time has gone on, it has faded away, doomed to a select few who would fl ock to arcades to get their kick. Finally, with the PlayStation 3 kicking into full gear, Namco Bandai has ported Time Crisis 4 to the machine. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to reignite the fi eld.

Now, don’t get us wrong, those still holding a candle for lightgun games and the Time Crisis series, in particular, will fi nd this sits perfectly within their collection. Our main problem is that while the standard shooting experience is good, the era of high defi nition makes it incredibly diffi cult to feel as in control as you have done in the past. The new setup, which is achieved by placing two sensors at the top of your television, doesn’t feel as precise as the G-Con 2’s simple plug, point and shoot system and, although you can adjust it to some degree, it is irritating.

Furthermore, when you convince a friend to come round and join in the action, Time Crisis hits a new low. We all expect to have to put up with our beloved split-screen, but why, oh why, did Namco decide to whack huge borders everywhere and put the screen in a letterbox format? It makes it almost impossible to play, confuses the calibration even further and eventually you will purposefully break one of your guns simply so you can return to some single-player action.

Even worse than this is the beyond terrible fi rst-person mode. In an attempt to increase Time Crisis’s longevity, a long-criticised point of lightgun games on a console, a brand new FPS adventure has been added. While in theory this is a great idea, in practice it’s not fun… at all! The controls are far too complicated, the gameplay too elementary to feel engaging and, overall, feels like a wasted opportunity.

There is some fun to be had with Time Crisis 4 because the design is the same as it’s ever been. Like always, some will be highly disapproving of this whereas fans will be pleased nothing has changed. Alas, even the latter will have to admit that number four falls slightly fl at due to the odd G-Con 3, pointless extra modes and a game which, to be honest, isn’t as good as the previous instalments.

Simon Miller