But what about you guys? Do you remember the glory days of plastic guns in arcades? Did you play it? Let us know in the comments. Sure, we had stuff like House of the Dead that came along to move the genre on, but for me the cover mechanic of Time Crisis was enough to elevate things on to a whole new level. So these are my memories of Time Crisis one of the best shooting games I remember playing in the arcade. I couldn’t afford a second G-Con as I was only a poor student at the time – it was, however, great. Bundled with the G-Con 45 – a great light gun accessory that replicated the arcade pedal with a button on the barrel – I must have spent many more hours than I care to remember playing this game on my PlayStation, and it was always a hit at Christmas as other folk lined up to take on the enemies. Now, I can’t mention the original Time Crisis without tipping my hat to the version that released on the PlayStation. However, the tension that the time limit built up, the quick pop outs to see where the enemies were before popping out again and dispensing lead-based justice, the avoiding bullets, they saw it all adding up to an experience that was more than the sum of its parts. The sound was likewise pretty much middle of the road stuff, with cool gun effects but not much else to hear. The low polygon count of the enemies can be overlooked, but the way Time Crisis comes across now is nothing to write home about. Graphically, at the time, it looked amazing, but I have to say that that same time has not been kind. With cash on the line, the balance between staying safe and going all gung ho was very well done.

You see, you only had a certain amount of time in which to clear each stage of all enemies, and the more time you spent hiding, the less time you had to succeed. However, Time Crisis also had another little trick up its sleeve to stop you cowering in the cove forevermore: a time limit. Pop out, blast away, pop in again to reload and so on. This one little mechanic ensured Time Crisis in the arcades was a bit more tense, as being on your last heart of life certainly focused the mind wonderfully when it came to avoiding the enemy fire. If you were taking a lot of fire, then releasing the pedal allowed you to take cover again, avoiding incoming fire. As a default, your character hid in cover, until you slammed down on the pedal, at which point your guy would emerge and allow you to shoot at the bad guys. On the cabinet in the arcade, not only was there a cool looking pistol to wield, but there was a pedal that you could press with your foot. Time Crisis was an on-rails shooter – one that just so happened to come with an interesting cover mechanic. With 12 stages to go at, split over three areas, there was a lot to do and a lot to see, and even at 20p a credit I did spend quite a lot of pennies before I actually finished it. And nothing says “Get out of the way!” like a bullet, as video games since the year dot have taught us. I don’t remember any more details than that, to be honest, but what it meant was that there were a load of bad guys between us and our objective, and they needed to be cleared out.

Of all the concepts that came forth from the Jam, DEXED was the one it was felt showed the most promise.The story of Time Crisis was the usual kind of overblown nonsense, with us playing as members of a special unit called Vial Situation, Swift Elimination or V.S.S.E, as we are tasked with eliminating a threat to national security. Teams of developers at the studio had one month each to build something that they thought would make a game they thought was cool. Ninja Theory, developers of the forthcoming (and very pretty) brawler Hellblade, held an internal game jam to promote creative thinking and to perhaps find the next killer concept for a new game. Although, to this old time gamer, there’s a also more than a hint of cult shooter Ikaruga here too.

To accomplish your mission you will have to participate in many shootouts and even fight. X-Men: The Official Game: The Iceman sections are third-person rail shooters. Wild Guns, a Space Western -theme shooter where you play as bounty hunters shooting outlaws. In your mission, you will have to breach into a crime scene and recover a briefcase full of proofs. Transformers: Cybertron Adventures, with a first-person mode when using the sniper rifle. For Ninja Theory’s developers, clearly in touch with their retro gaming past, Sega Saturn classic Panzer Dragoon‘s core ‘look to target’ system, was liberally pilfered for their latest title DEXED. cyVeRpunk is a fast-paced VR on-rail shooter (like Time Crisis) where the player is a freelancer working for the mob in a futuristic cyberpunk-themed city. It’s interesting to see older, classic game concepts and mechanics brought up to date inside an entirely new medium such as VR. Built as part of an in-house game jam, Ninja Theory’s debut VR title DEXED is a beautiful on-rails shooter that pulls inspiration from the Sega Saturn classic Panzer Dragoon and a dash of cult shooter Ikaruga.

On rails shooter abandonware