Video Game Review: ‘Time Crisis: Razing Storm’ Brings Arcade Experience Home

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CHICAGO – With the verdict still out on the market relevance and popularity of the Sony Playstation Move, one wonders how we should approach the “phase one” titles that try to take advantage of this new technology. Should we be a little soft and consider the growing pains involved in anything new? Or be extra hard as these are the titles meant to justify the purchase price of the new tech? “Time Crisis: Razing Storm” only works if you take the former approach.

Video Game Rating: 2.5/5.0

Most of us have played some version of “Time Crisis” at an arcade. Believe it or not young ones, there was a time when the only way you could shoot a video game gun at anything outside of “Duck Hunt” was by going to an arcade, dropping quaraters in a slot, and playing “House of the Dead” or “Time Crisis.” The idea to make a “Time Crisis” game one of the titles available near launch of the Playstation Move was a brilliant one: Bring a bit of that arcade shooter experience home now that Sony has developed a tool to make targeting easier.

Time Crisis: Razing Storm
Photo credit: Namco Bandai

Namco Bandai realized that one arcade shooter wouldn’t quite be enough to entice players who just opened their wallets for the Playstation Move and so they bundled the new “Time Crisis: Razing Storm” with “Time Crisis 4” and “Deadstorm Pirates.” All three games feature what you’d expect from a modern rail game — a whole lot of reloading and shooting.

Time Crisis: Razing Storm Photo credit: Namco Bandai

Sadly, all three games also look like they came straight out of an arcade. The graphics are disappointing and the controls are often more frustrating than one of those worn-down machines at Chuck E. Cheese. The reticule-and-trigger are responsive but the levels in which you need to swing to the right or left or make motions for an action to happen can be downright baffling in their response time. Basically, all three titles simply look unpolished, as if the bare minimum was put into their development/import to the PS3.

Worst of all is the new Story content in “Razing Storm,” which requires movement control with a control stick in one hand and the Move controller for shooting in the other. The hand-eye coordination to move with one hand and shoot with another may seem obvious to Wii-mote users but it has yet to be refined on the PS3.

With the kind of insanely cheesy storytelling, dialogue, and graphics that are much-more tolerable after a Pepsi bender in an arcade than they are at home, “Time Crisis: Razing Storm” simply doesn’t make the Playstation Move look good. It’s saying something that “Deadstorm Pirates” is easily the most entertaining portion of the game. Maybe I’m just a sucker for zombie pirates but when a game’s best asset is a bundled-in “extra” title, there’s a bit of a problem.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about “Time Crisis: Razing Storm” is how incomplete it feels as a disc release. Imagine this: Imagine if Sony had released a number of hit arcade rail games like “Time Crisis” or even “House of the Dead” for $5-$10 a piece through the PSN on the day of the Playstation Move launch. Players could pick and choose what shooters to buy and play, as if they were in the virtual arcade of the future. We all know DLC is the way of the future. Sadly, even though it’s been designed to push a 2010 technology, “Time Crisis: Razing Storm” already feels dated.

Check out a trailer before you practice your shooting skills on your own:

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com [email protected]