Time Crisis - Arcade

It's time, for a Crisis

Pedals and guns. An odd combination to be sure but it has a lot of potential and thanks to Namco, they've managed to turn it into an entire franchise through Time Crisis. Use the gun to shoot everyone and everything you possibly can in the shortest amount of time in order to progress through the levels, while using the pedal to advance and releasing the pedal to become indestructible but at the cost of a) time and b) not being able to shoot anything at all.

There are shotcuts to be found too

There's a plot in Time Crisis, as one might hope for and it runs along the B-Movie lines of "Someone has been kidnapped, arms smugglers are attempting to take over some small principality and you're being sent in, lone agent style, to stop the plot, save the hostage and shoot up more people than Rambo, Commando and Robocop combined. 

Quite a few shortcuts

As expected, the focus in the game is on Time and there being a Crisis. The Crisis has already been explained and the Time element is that you'll have approximately a minute to beat the game. However, before people decry bullshit, you gain time in various ways. These range from clearing an area, to shooting yellow/gold enemies which only appear periodically and briefly for a bonus of 2-5 seconds, as well as getting quick-fire accuracy shots for more time and there's always alternative solutions in blowing something up or being quick enough to bypass stop-gap checkpoints as an extra incentive for the especially quick players. 

Whoa! A plot too!

You're given several lives in Time Crisis, depending upon the arcade settings, ranging from 3 to 9 (only the super generous would permit that however) and getting shot by a lethal bullet or explosive or even hazardous surroundings, will results in having one of your health points removed and staggers your view for a few seconds, losing even more precious time. The issue is that if you run out of time, it's game over regardless of the health of which you're carrying on you. That aside, once you get used to the idea that speed and accuracy and bravery will win this, not cautiousness and carefulness, you will make significantly more progress and find yourself only really stepping off the pedal once a reload is required or one of the red soldiers turn up, as these ones are almost certain to be firing lethal shots. Not that the others can't wound, they're just much less likely to do so.

There's quite a variety in locations and settings in the game

Cars, cannons, helicopters, these are several of the larger enemies in the game that will require more firepower to take down. Failing that, there's always soldiers, rocket soldiers, ninjas with claws, ninjas with knives, machine gunners, soldiers with pipes and many other enemies. It's an interesting mix of madness while you'll quickly learn to spot the red enemies and unique enemies as they'll be the ones that shoot you before you realise it. 

Sadly, not the final boss

The music in Time Crisis fits well and has been scored appropriately, a steady set tempo that becomes more manic and intense during the lead up towards the more climatic battles and dips back at the start of a level to ease us emotionally into the next round. Speech has been recorded well and you'll often hear "Action!" as if this game took on the form of a movie or cinematic but it's suitable enough to not be repetitively annoying and often is welcomed as it makes it abundantly clear when the action is back on again.

Only the red guys should be worried over.

It's an impressive game and concept (If Space Gun hadn't done it first...) and for the first game in the franchise, has shown that you can take the old style of the on-rails shooter and make something innovative with it. Unlike Space Gun, Time Crisis is fully 3D using the similar graphics engines that the PSX could manage but for some reason it works very well with this game, scenes and backgrounds are wonderfully represented given the circumstances and everything does feel like a hike through an East European castle with its construction sites, science labs (including 'The Fly' teleporters...) all the way up to the big final battle with the Man-Behind-The-Man bad guy. Who keeps popping up in other games.

Certainly worth several credits and hopefully you'll have a machine that gives you a plethora of lives with which to play around.

Sniper Assassin: Shoot to Kill - iPhone

Starts off well, goes down hill quickly.

Through casually looking at and checking over the apps within the store, I happened upon this little game, which I thought I'd give a try. Thinking it'd be something along the lines of Sniper Scope on the arcades or one of those pseudo-Duck Hunt games harkening back to the days of the NES, or perhaps a reimagining of an original game along the lines of Operation Wow (a.k.a, let's cartoonise Operation Wolf). Instead I got something a little more impressive and a little cynical on the whole social commentary.

The BEST rifle, for more cash than a AAA game title these days...

The plot, you're a sniper and you're given contracts from city to city that you need to fulfil. These contracts tend to be specific to an area and more often than not, will require you to take aim into the city and shoot someone. Sometimes the mission will require you to shoot down several targets, or blow up a helicopter and such.

The detail and levelling aspect brings something novel to the game, boredom.

The layout of each mission takes place within a 3D modelled city and your location can be from alleyways to rooftops and usually a long way away from the action. Using your phone, you turn and tilt the phone until you're aiming at what you want, using the slider on the left you can use the zoom function but this takes you off aim for a moment while you do it (unless very careful) and tapping the screen anywhere will take the shot. A final shot/successful shot will be mapped out in a rather impressive bullet time akin almost to the Sniper Elite games, minus the skeleton structure showing. Head shots score more points than other shots and taking too long on a mission will inevitably fail it (or missing if it's a hostage mission).

Ingame cash, for outgame cash, to upgrade a gun to shoot things. This is apparently "fun".

However, each mission requires Energy, Energy that refills over time, or can be purchased. Here's where the nasty little monster of Pay to Keep Playing comes in. On top of this, to really push the money front out, each mission has prerequisites in the form of Accuracy, Zoom, Power and Stability which can all be upgraded for your particular weapon. You can use the money you earn from missions to upgrade the weapons or take one-off missions to add further supplement of funds, but these cost Energy. Or buy more coins.

You too can BUY this GUN! For more money than a real gun costs...

Yep, now we're getting bogged down in the gameplay. Later missions and special missions will require the use of more energy and some of the missions will be increasingly awkward to complete. Such as suicide bombers that MUST be taken out with a head shot. Phone bombers that won't be identified until they pull out a mobile phone. Other maps will set you up to fail and not until you fail the mission that the "helpful" guide will tell you what trap you just fell into.

So many missions, but you'll run out of energy way before you do anything.

The game is fully geared up for the long haul of burning your cash away. New weapons cost a fortune by comparison and later upgrades take additional time to be "delivered" while the option to spend a specific in-game currency is dropped in too! The gameplay is interesting to the point that some missions require some observation, thinking, planning, taking into account bullet drop over distance and then again, there's the money issue that royally takes lets the game shove you over a barrel so it can be ram overpriced costs up your arse sideways while laughing at your feeble attempts to pay up. 

Whoo, it's like The Matrix all over again.

Or, just don't pay and play every day or so. Sadly, this game effectively forces casual play as a difficulty spike, a nice idea but very poorly executed for the sake of pay-to-play functions.

Article 100 - Chrono Trigger

Let the epic, begin

So it's the 100th article of the blog and I thought I'd go and look at what I feel is on the best RPGs of all time and nay, best games of all time. Yes, I believe this game should be in anyone's Top20 list, likely in my own Top5. The problem with such lists is that they always swing and sway but I'd place Chrono Trigger there any day. Here's why.

Looks lovely and happy, that never is going to last long is it...

Let's get the basics out of the way first. You play as Chrono and his band of friends that he picks up from around time and space, sort of like a kid Doctor Who and you find out that when you try to use a teleporter at the local fair, some girl's pendant sets off a temporal flux and you're flung back in time 400 years to where you realise that some asshat has bollocksed up the timeline by mistakenly assuming that the girl who has gone with you, is the queen of that time period. This causes a huge bullshit session of the girl you're with being unwritten from time as the queen of that time is your friend's ancestor.

We don't really know Flea's gender, we don't care either, kill it.

All this is carefully explained with monsters and images by the way in such a way most kids could get this, really playing to the mass audience with aspects of consequence and causality. To which you and another friend and a man-sized frog (keep with me) go and rescue the real queen to set the timeline right again. This is just the first hour or so of the game.

Batter up, it bashing time.

Eventually your rag-time friends from across time spanning back to the age of man vs. dinosaurs (don't think too hard on this) to the future where the apocalypse has had an apocalypse (Yes, Blood Dragon, well done), you're left to hop back and forth through time, fixing the problems as you go and solving things in a sort of Dr Who meets Back to the Future in order to try and stop the world ending in 1999 (You start in 1000), while the future in 2300 is bleak and shitty.

Looks nice and friendly.

Each time period represents issues within our own history. 65 mil BC is our dino era with mankind learning basic language skills and fighting T-Rex's as often as one lights up a cigarette in a sort of "evolution represented by one big punch up" race between dinos and apes. 23,000bc has the segregation system in place of the underlings represented by non-magical users and the uber-class of magical users which also seem to cause most of the problems in this game. 600ad is your usual might and magic era, expect knights, maidens, talking frogs and an out of place magic user. 1000 ad is pseudo steam punk pleasant modern day, 1999 is just one event, the end of the world and the game's final boss and 2300ad is the bleak future of starvation, dying, disease and lots of robots and mutants. There's also the end of time populated by one old dude, a god of war and a streetlamp straight from some old 1960s film-noir.

5v3, no contest.

It's varied, it's memorable and it approaches the time travel aspect in a rather interesting way. Initially you'll be hopping through gates from one time period to another until you get to a point where you get the "Fly around the main map and time hop when I want" but until then it's fairly rail-roaded. The more interesting aspect taken into account is that nearly EVERYTHING you do has an impact later in the game. Even the first area, where you're walking around with the new girl, all of your actions can bite you in the arse 4-5 hours after they've happened. Summarised in such a way that you realise that 'yes, doing that in game would make me look like a total prick' in one of the biggest parodies of the genre before accepting it wholeheartedly in the next breath.

Large zombie skeleton things, not quite what you expect to see in 600AD

As you progress through the game you'll end up solving quests and puzzles that require thinking in time zones. Need a forest now? Go build it back a few hundred years ago. Mum's a cripple? Go back and save her from the accident she had.

The Epoch, a time machine unless you named it something else. I called it Dave.

Aside from this, the game has over 10 endings and variations all depending upon when and how you fight the final boss. The variations depend on whether you completed the big missions to improve things while the actual endings are all about at what point in the game you decide to destroy the giant flea from space that screws up time, Lavos. Some endings are done purely for laughs, while others take a serious "Here's the consequences of your actions deal".

Either everyone got tired, or you screwed up.

As a game, it's an RPG so you've your chars and their experience, stats automatically are designated on levelling up but you can also boost them with items if you can find them. You'll get a weapon, helmet, armour and accessory for each character (some can't be adjusted, but usually you can) with greater armours and weapons throughout the game and some coming from some very convoluted missions. So a lot of the personalisation with the characters is gone as you can't focus their talents and are just told "You levelled up, here's a spell that makes an enemy's arse explode" while fighting in a zone of monsters with no buttocks, or something similar...

This only goes to show how BADLY you messed the game up.

Combat takes the guise of mostly scripted events, even the location and placing of characters is pre-determined while some of the attacks and techniques you can use are 'area of effect' or 'line of sight' and characters are kept stationary except when attacking. There is no "random" battle, monsters you fight in a zone/area will be there each time you go through that zone/area, giving you a chance to be ambushed just the first time you go through (or if you forget) while other fights are entirely of the "walk into them and kick arse" type. You can often prepare for a fight with the right items and checking health/mana levels.

Oddly enough, you see this in all points in time, can fight it all points too.

Each fight gives you the choice to attack with the weapon, use a technique or combo technique if multiple compatible characters have the right moves available i.e. Froggy and Chrono can perform an X-attack, while Froggy and Marle do a different attack with different results and impacts, some techs can be done by all 3 working together. However later in the game, individual chars tend to be able to just hit high on their own anyway. Chars can also use an item instead and at the start of the game these will likely be essential to recover health and such.

Magic and technology, looks friendly with that blue-hue trim over the planet.

Enemies run the variation of being standard, high-def low-magic, high-magic low-def, switchers and puzzles where you have to do one thing, then another, then another to kill them. Bosses are almost all puzzles, particularly the final boss when you realise just what actually IS the real core of the boss. Other bosses need to be destroyed in order of parts, or have weaknesses initiated by magical impacts. Magus being a key one as he'll fight with magic and changes immunities every other turn or so. Puzzles of such degree that even when playing through in the New Game+ modes, you'll STILL have to be careful. Yes you can hit harder than GOD and already killed monsters and enemies that transcend time and space, but that robot dragon will only die when you hit it in the RIGHT ORDER.

Yep, riding dinos. How else do you get around?

There's a lot to do in this game, puzzles, quests, missions, so many things one can miss and WILL miss even after many years of playing (I've still not seen ALL the possible endings, most of them however), questions to ask yourself such as "Do I take the item now, or wait 400 years and take it later?" "Do I give it for free or make him pay? What's the knock-on implications for this?" "Do I really want to save a crippled mother's legs?" Some very hard questions one has to ask oneself.

The game has some truly inspired graphics and interior decor.

As a story, the pacing is fairly solid up until the final session when the last few dungeons are just a long slog of "Oh this guy again, ok let's hit him with attack A C B... and again a few rooms later... and again... here's his powered up form so let's... just... do... the same thing again..." While the missions and questions to improve the world before you fight the final boss add a little extra element of thought and impact rarely seen in games at that time. It gets complicated after a while but never so much that it becomes unfathomable and new elements are introduced gradually rather than being tossed in.

This enemy cannot die. You can re-fight it again and again and again. Why didn't they send this into battle instead?

Some parts of the game are poorly thought out however, one in particular is where your band is kidnapped and held hostage and while attempting a daring escape, need to recover their weapons, items, armour and gold, of which some can be left behind and lost forever. Also, if all three of your party fight with weapons, you'll HAVE to stealth it around the level and getting caught puts you right back where you started making it a sort of Spy By Trial And Improvement type of deal. Other parts include mandatory repetitive battles that serve no real purpose other than to pad the gameplay out, of which there's a lot of it already while other parts of the game.

Nope, not dead yet, in fact it's only just begun.

The music within the game really adds to the atmosphere and ambience created in tandem with the artwork and graphics. Every piece of music is not only distinguishably different, but either increases a sombre mood, enhances an adrenaline rush of a boss fight, or more epic boss fight, or highlights the joviality of a scene punctuated by the more light-hearted and flittery scores of music composed for use in this game.

The final boss, but which part is the REAL thing? Hint: Not the big thing.

With regards to the graphics, everything looks stunning, from the spell effects to the time travel warps, to the characters themselves and the detail and attention on the backgrounds is mind-blowing to see from the logs of wood on houses to the slates and cobbles in the streets. Even the smallest time zone, the end of time, is lavished upon in detail and gloom adding a real impact that this is all that's left once time itself has finished. An old man by some cobbled streets with a single lamppost almost out of Victorian era industrial revolution times.

Grim, bleak, mortifying. Detroit never looked so good.

Does it have replay factor, yes by the bucket-load. With each completion players can run through again on New Game+ giving them the chance to play in a different manner, try different things and gain items they couldn't have done the first time through because of the "This OR That" choices that had to be made. Try to win the trial by jury, complete or fail to complete specific quests, save people or condemn them and see what the impacts are upon the game's world. With also over 10 different endings including the "I beat the game by myself as one character because I took the second teleporter right at the start" which, while difficult, isn't impossible and certainly feels great when fighting the last boss through time and space SOLO. (Yes... yes I have, thank you for asking).

Well he IS the God of War.

It's bright, it's bold, it's different and done very well and remains a game I'd recommend to anyone who hasn't played it before and especially in this day and age where it can be found on handhelds and mobile devices. Pick it up, have a taste of how it should be done right and realise that few games will compare even closely to this one.

Bad Dudes vs Dragonninja (NES)

This game is definitely BAD enough to waste your time and grammar.

Are you a Bad enough Dude to play this game? Don't bother. However, I should be fair. The arcade game is a decent enough platform-ish romp, enjoyable to a point where it becomes more tedious than fun. THIS game, for the NES is diabolical by itself and atrocious in comparison. Granted I am taking into account that there's a significant scale-down from arcade to console, but if Bubble Bobble can do it, as well as Ramparts as reviewed earlier by myself, there's no reason THIS should be so downright unplayable.

Generic tittymen.

You've the nice graphics, which is signalling a big rip-apart coming up if I'm jumping straight to the graphics and the best I can say is "nice", but there's some strong presence of trying to replicate the arcade's graphics though perhaps that is where this game has fallen down, the attempt is so strong that there's little effort been put into realising that it's going to slow everything down.

Sadly, this is possibly the best part of this port of the game.

Controlling the game is a chore, your Bad Dude (With strong emphasis on the word "bad" to mean "SHITE") moves in chunky, blocky and almost in grid-like fashion, ninjas in all their off-colour glory run about in blocky movements and there's no fluidity behind anything regarding characters and motion. To add to this, there are significantly less enemies on screen to prevent sprite flicker but to compensate for this, some ninjas have multiple hit-points which does change the game mechanics A LITTLE, and note I said 'change' not 'improve'.

So painful, to even look at it, it's just... so "bad". In the bad way.

Combat is almost as hit and miss as Battleships, you've got to have some quick reflexes to be able to hit something that moves the way these ninjas do and also to be able to accurately time the difference between jump then attack, jump and attack, and finally, jump andattackalmoststraightaway, to get the spinning kick move that will basically let you trawl through the levels very quickly and not have to fight anything while you speed it towards the boss on the short levels. The auto scrolling levels do not give you this shortcut, you're in it for the very long boring haul.

Thank god that's over.... what? There's MORE LEVELS?!? Shoot me now.

The music is an assorted mess of squeaks and poorly processed notation with a possibly memorable instance of one bit of music that sadly, is so distorted, that it ends up sounding slightly better than it would do normally, so it's not really as a result of planning or composition but blind luck. Makes me wonder if it's Deaf-Luck when vision is not an issue... Never mind. The sound effects are barely existent but the most risible of all is the end of the boss fight when the pitiful attempt to copy the arcade's sounds of "I'm Bad" come out sounding like the most guttural grunt from the most base Neanderthal in existence. Or the final satisfying grunt from a constipated gorilla, I've yet to decide.

Sadly, I've not been decapitated by the awesome pose of the boss, it's just sprite flicker.

Granted, the game has the same variety of moves found in the arcade, you can jump, jump kick, spinning-jump kick, punch, kick, crouch, grab weapons, use weapons and so on but there's no polish and shine to the delivery, it's a very stale and clunky method of control beset with the issues of there being a shade of a game behind the original. The original wasn't that great either, but this could have been better.

Another boss, another step closer to ending this. Or I could switch it off.

This version, isn't worth playing through to get a burger with the president. He can rot for this one.