I’ll be brutally honest, I was a Virtua Cop guy growing up.
Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun playing Time Crisis in the arcade, but I didn’t actually have it at home. I had the Virtua Gun for the SEGA Saturn y’see, so a lot of my youth was spent blasting through AM2’s rails shooter.
I bought a GunCon and Time Crisis off eBay not too long ago, and ran through the campaign several times. It’s timeless even today, and it obviously feels best with that hearty Namco accessory in your hands.
It was always going to be difficult for emulation outfit Implicit Conversions to transfer that experience to the PS5, then, where the gameplay needs to be broadly accessible to everyone. Of course, you’ve got the original d-pad controls in there, but that’s no fun, is it?
I’m surprised and delighted to see this version take advantage of the DualSense’s gyroscope, then, which offers a decent facsimile of the light gun experience.
Now look, I’m not going to lie to you: it’s not the same. This feels more like a cursor than a true light gun, but it does retain that physical action of making you feel like you’re aiming all around the screen.
The default control setup – which can be changed to suit your needs – maps the pedal to R1 and the trigger to Circle. Lining up headshots, particularly on those faraway enemies, feels pretty good.
The DualSense’s gyros aren’t perfect, and do have a tendency to drift over time. But you can push Triangle to recentre your aim, which is a thoughtful addition.
Obviously the PS1 version of this game does have some cutbacks compared to the original arcade release, but it benefits from extra stages which really extend the longevity of the overall campaign.
The superior NTSC version is selected by default, but you can toggle to the tardy PAL edition if you really want to deal with the iffy performance from your childhood. (Why would you torture yourself like that, though?)
The big bummer here, as we’ve already mentioned, is that there are no Trophies included. Obviously that doesn’t impact the overall experience – this is still a classic – but it is a shame Bandai Namco hasn’t included them to add value to the port overall.
Nevertheless, having spent an hour or so with Time Crisis’ new gyroscope controls, I’d love to see other GunCon games follow. Point Blank and Resident Evil: Dead Aim would be among my picks, but I’d obviously love the other Time Crisis titles as well.
Time Crisis is available now on PS5 and PS4 for $9.99/£7.99, and is included with the PS Plus Premium subscription. Have you given this emulated effort a go yet? Let us know below.
