Crisis Zone

• Release Date: 1999
• Genre: Shooter
• Style: Shooter with Weapon Peripheral

Game Description

The government of the United Kingdom is celebrating the opening of a new commercial and corporate enterprise in suburban London. Known as Garland Square, this tremendous complex boasts a shopping mall, a beautiful park, and even a high-tech corporate office building. And yet in these dangerous times, Garland Square possesses a secret that makes it a highly attractive target to the rogue terrorist elements loose in the world. Deep below the complex lies an experimental and highly unstable power supply constructed by Garland Electric, and although the company has opted to generate power via safer methods, Geyser 1 is still operational, and if exploited properly could cause a nuclear reaction that would destroy London.

Enter Derrick Lynch, head of the terrorist regime URDA and Crisis Zone's immediate answer to Murphy's Law. For mysterious reasons more than likely similar to the machinations of most other evil videogame characters, Lynch wants to destroy the city and eventually the world. His large and well-armed group has seized the Square, populated it with henchmen, and is initiating the process of blowing it all up. Enter the Special Tactical Force, a highly elite assembly of former British Special Forces with a fondness for high-powered machine guns and taking care of nasty situations such as this.

In Crisis Zone, Namco's third installment to its popular Time Crisis series, you take on the role of this group's squad leader as they make their way through Garland Square to take it back from Lynch's iron grip. As with crises past, players are judged on how efficiently they dispatch enemies as well as how quickly they move through the game. In Crisis Zone, the new twist is that players are given fully automatic machine guns, a significant difference from the semi-auto handguns previously used in the Time Crisis games.

Those comfortable with Time Crisis and its sequel will be immediately familiar with the duck-and-cover process used in Crisis Zone. The machine gun has a limited clip and must be reloaded. Players do this by releasing pressure off of the action pedal and diving behind their shield. While covered by the shield they cannot be hurt, and therein lies a significant difference from the older games in the series. Whereas the previous chapters had the player hiding behind various objects to take cover and reload, ultimately turning the games into a series of static scenes, Crisis Zone boasts the ability for you to move throughout the game, continually advancing even as you fire away at your adversaries.

Another feature contained in the game is the ability to inflict collateral damage on the surrounding environments that you trudge through. Not everything can be shot or destroyed in the various areas, but many things can, from windows and computers to electrical equipment and sporting goods. Not only is it quality stress relief to blow away everything, it is also necessary for higher scores. The continual, flowing nature of the game allows for the possibility of huge combo bonuses, and players will need to shoot the various background objects to keep the combo going in between enemies that pop out.

Crisis Zone is divided into four levels: the mall (Drycreek Plaza), park (Garland Park), high-tech office (Garland Technology Center), and Geyser 1. The first three sections comprise the majority of the game, and are designed to appear like their real-life counterparts. In the mall, you'll travel through a CD store, a stock room filled with curious statues, a china shop, a sporting goods/hat store, as well as the escalators and hallways one would expect.

Along the way you'll fight a variety of enemies, each one possessing a life bar that appears and shrinks as you shoot them. Different colors represent difference difficulty levels, with some soldiers going down without a fight and others standing their ground and lobbing blasts at you with deadly accuracy. These shots are highlighted by a beep and a red circle, warning you to get out of the way or be nailed, losing one of three-to-five lives you possess for a game, depending on the machine settings. Other dangers are less obvious but no less dangerous, from grenades and knives to barrels and iron cross beams. The key is knowing when to dodge behind the shield and when to let the enemy have it, full blast.

Boss battles each take up about a third of each level's playing time. Depending on which route you choose (Crisis Zone allows you to pick the first three levels in any order), you will face a large tank with a Vulcan cannon, four missile launching bays and a main turret; a Hind-D attack chopper armed with stinger missiles, a Vulcan, and depth-charge-like bombs it can drop from its cargo bay; and a big guy/little guy pair of elite soldiers that lob exploding barrels and shuriken at you, respectively. You'll take on Derrick Lynch in Geyser 1. He lobs grenades at you while firing away with a custom shotgun that packs a punch as wicked as he is.

Crisis Zone is available in stand-up 27" cabinets, as well as 50" deluxe cabinets in higher-end arcades. The gun gives off considerable recoil and should maintain a high level of accuracy if the machine well-maintained.

Review: Overall

Crisis Zone's legacy within the context of Namco's Time Crisis series is ultimately sketchy at best. It didn't find nearly the success or market penetration that its predecessors managed, and people generally seemed to be less excited about the frantic machine gun chaos that makes up the title's gameplay. But those who would skip Crisis Zone are missing one of the most detailed and exciting arcade games of 2000, as well as one of the top gun games of the decade.



Time Crisis was always one of the most unique games on the shoot 'em up scene, discarding the previously ubiquitous "shoot them before they shoot you" tactics that littered and ultimately stagnated the genre. Players could now dive for cover, dodging bullets and knives, adding extra layers of strategy and skill to the game. No longer regulated to simply absorbing cheap shots impossible to stop or block, Time Crisis was a game about beating the clock and the honing your skills, with a brilliant and steep learning curve that could eventually lead players to conquer it on a single credit.

Enter Crisis Zone, which takes this basic outline and jacks it up a few notches. To paraphrase a line from the best American action movie ever made: "Now you have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho." Along with that rumbling weapon, you enjoy a mandate to shoot up pretty much anything you can find. And with your super-trusty block-anything shield, you can do so in dynamic fashion, moving through the levels at a methodical pace.

First and foremost, the machine gun could have turned out to be one of those "seemed like a good idea at the time" situations, peeling away the basic joys of accuracy and skill from the Crisis series. There was always something personal and satisfying (not to mention slightly disturbing) about filling enemies with individually fired bullets, carefully placing head and torso shots to do maximum damage for maximum scoring. The pace here is even faster, and the machine gun feature actually fits into the system quite nicely; now the focus is on maximum damage as opposed to individual shot placement. The combo hit rating keeps going as long as you're shooting something that can be destroyed, just as in Time Crisis 2. But unlike that game, where there were only minimal extras to shoot, Crisis Zone offers a wealth of background objects to shred in a hale of bullets. Tearing through enemies, window glass and assorted knick-knacks as your bullets streams around the area is a thing of beauty.



Larger combos and faster kills equal bigger scores in this game, and believe it or not, if you get the hang of Crisis Zone, this will soon be your focus, as opposed to not getting hit or finishing the area before time runs out. The learning curve to this game is steep, and previous experience with the Crisis series won't automatically guarantee success, but if you stick with it and learn enemy patterns (which remain consistent no matter how many times you play) and how to avoid the red-circled sure shots that the villains fire, you can make it through the game without continuing on a relatively consistent basis. In turn, score becomes the focus, and point totals that seem impossible at first slowly become more and more attainable. Although there are no secret areas like Time Crisis 2, there are multiple strategies for tearing through the game at a faster and faster rate. Like its predecessors, Crisis Zone has an incredible amount of replay value.

The game makes a great impression in terms of graphics. While the engine isn't much of a leap past Time Crisis 2's visuals, it is far more dynamic. It's hard to notice how good all of the textures are, because you're generally shooting and destroying the polygonal objects they're attached to. The levels are rich in detail and varied: the shopping mall brims over with assorted colorful trinkets that no one needs, and the corporate office is so realistic that its hard not to take vengeful delight when spraying the cubicles with bullet holes. The human enemies are well-modeled and generally have a more detailed look than in Time Crisis 2. And the vehicular bosses are sleek and intimidating, matching the clever and polished design of the levels they rule. Only the final level is a real disappointment: after battling through a long game with clever bosses, you end up fighting a guy who fires a shotgun at you in a control room that isn't that different from the tech center. Not exactly the great pay-off one would hope for.

The game's sounds are hard to pick up beyond the continuous rat-at-at of the machine gun and the death cries and explosions of the bad guys. But the aural assault of a cabinet where the sound is cranked up complements the game nicely, with the impact of the stream of bullets and rumbling bass very effective in heightening the experience all around.

Crisis Zone might not seem to be the most accessible kid on the block, and the constantly vibrating machine gun might be too much for people with sensitive hands, but the game is really the total arcade package, with tight visual splendor wrapped up in a game than contains surprising depth for the 15 minutes you can play it.

Review: Enjoyment

Intense, fast-paced, and always keeping you on your toes, Crisis Zone captures the spirit of the arcade perfectly, keeping your sweaty palms wrapped around the gun, pumping in quarters (if need be) in the desire to see more.

Review: Graphics

The game doesn't boast the best textures or sharpest polygons, but the level design and attention to detail more than makes up for its moderate improvement over Time Crisis 2.

Review: Sound

Crisis Zone roars with proper gun-blazing fury, and the music that you can hear is appropriate for this kind of action-packed adventure.

Review: Replay Value

{*Time Crisis} has always been a series that you can count on for replay value, offering fast-paced gameplay with the ability to improve over time. {*Crisis Zone} is no different. It should keep you shooting for that elusive 5 million points.

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