lorinsilver's Full Review: Time Crisis for PlayStation 1
It was the dawn of time, and a fun and hugely popular Playstation-shooter appeared, and its name was Time Crisis… And the world rejoiced. But after several moons the people grew restless and cried out to Namco “We grow tired of this game, and need a new Time Crisis, more of the same, only better!” So Namco created a new and improved game, and they named it “Time Crisis: Project Titan”. And Namco believed that the world would rejoice anew, for they had lived up to their expectations… But to their dismay some people did thrust out their bottom lip, for they did not possess a G-Con 45 gun…
As Richard Miller, top agent, you are accused of murdering the president – no, Bush still lives – of the state Caruba, a certain “Xavier Serrano”. Of course you’re innocent, and they’ll give you 48 hours to find the real killer and prove your innocence. In other words, you have to complete the whole game in order to be successful, or die searching.
There are two game modes to choose from: Time Attack and Normal Mode. In Time Attack you begin on a certain level, and have to shoot all the enemies as quickly as possible in a battle against time. Shooting accurately isn’t important in this mode, as long as you’re fast enough.
Normal Mode, the actual game, has three difficulty levels (Easy, Normal and Hard), and when you pick your level, the action starts…
There are three major areas in Project Titan, and each area is divided into four levels, the last one being a “boss”-level. You begin on board a luxury cruise ship, and throughout the game you end up in an airport, a factory, a laboratory,… all quite varied locales. To find the actual murderer, you have to reach the end of every level without being killed and without losing track of time, because your time is limited. Depending on the difficulty level you get a certain number of lives, and every time you get shot you lose one of these precious lives – as you can see the arcade feel to this Playstation Shoot-‘em-up is big.
Most of the enemies aren’t very accurate shots, to your advantage of course, but you have to be alert for the red snipers, because they are very good shots. +If you fire 40 successful shots in a row, you earn an extra life.
Graphics-wise, Project Titan doesn’t bring us anything new, but admittedly that isn’t the most important aspect of a shooter. The backgrounds are – going by Playstation standards – fairly detailed and there are different easily recognisable types of enemy. Most of the characters look fairly sharp, but I thought the in-between movies were of low quality. The action does flow neatly from level to level, without any annoying pop-ups, and that is definitely a plus.
Every bad guy reacts differently depending on where he’s hit – shoot him in the chest and he’ll fall backwards, shoot him in the arm and he’ll spin around before dropping, shoot him in the leg and he’ll grab for it,… Unlike games like “House of the Dead”, one shot suffices to kill an enemy.
Project Titan’s strong point is the gameplay. The relentless shooting and continuous action are very exciting, and it’s quite remarkable that the game doesn’t slow down one bit when there are lots of targets on the screen at the same time.
To reload your gun, you release one of the buttons to take cover, and when you’re ready for action again to press that same button to reappear, just like in the original game. Thanks to a “multi-hiding”-system that the people at Namco developed around the spots where the bosses hang out, you’re covered while moving from one strategic point to another. That way you avoid bullet showers from the enemies, while you can take out your target with one well-aimed shot.
New ideas are rather scarce in Project Titan. I think the most remarkable novel thing and improvement is the spectacular “duck-and-shoot”-action that you can do. When you have an enemy in your sight, and he happens to aim his gun at you too, you can use this ultimate manoeuvre to duck for cover and shoot at the same time. You’ll have to perform this marvellous action more than once if you want to finish the game successfully!
The boss fights have changed slightly too: now you can actually sneak up at them from behind! The boss strength is significantly higher than the other enemies’, of course, and sometimes he can see you well enough, while you don’t have a good view of him, so he can shoot you to pieces with a rain of bullets. In Time Crisis, one good shot was enough to take out a boss when he appeared, but now you’ll have to be a little more careful…
Project Titan can only be played by a single player, and that is a bit of a shame, but with a G-Con gun in your hand, you’ll have loads of fun with this Namco Shoot-‘em-up. I tried playing it with my original joypad, and it was near impossible. The gameplay is excellent, but a tad too easy (with G-Con) to reach the high level of the original. All in all, I think you might be better of hiring, instead of buying, this Time Crisis: Project Titan. With gun, please.
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