Guns Blazin’
Gameplay in each of these games is probably about what you would expect — fast paced, guns blazing action. The Arcade Mode of Razing Storm puts you on an elite fireteam squad that must take out numerous terrorists utilizing a variety of weapons from assault rifles to rocket launchers and sniper rifles. This mode turns out to be pretty darn short (especially when played with a friend), but that shouldn’t be too surprising for an arcade title. I didn’t realize this until I read it online, but Razing Storm features the first destructible environments in the Time Crisis series which is pretty cool. There is also an Online Battle Mode and a Sentry Mode which supports four players (one at a time) with the idea being to shoot down escaping prisoners to see who nets the highest score.
My only real complaint, a major one, with the Arcade Mode is the same one I had with the demo: how the game handles reloading. It’s odd because the Story mode does a better job with reloading, but in Arcade, you have to press one of the face buttons or the Move button. Considering every gun accessory for the Move has these buttons facing directly up, you obviously can’t reach them with your shooting hand, and it’s really not convenient at all to have to reach over with your other hand every few seconds to reload. Pressing these buttons doesn’t just reload your weapon though, it actually raises up your shield, and if you simply hold the button you will continue to stay behind your shield. While that is certainly helpful, it’s still too cumbersome. There really is no work around for this design and a patch isn’t likely. I found this control issue to be a major problem; I found the game to be a lot less fun because of how they implemented reloading.
The Story Mode makes a change in reloading but also in how you play the game. Instead of a shield to use as cover while you reload, in Story actually just press right on the d-pad (be that on your Nav controller or DualShock3 or Guncon3). To take cover, which you can only do at certain areas, you move the Move Remote above the screen and then back down again to peek out. This works okay, but the movement controls and camera still feel clunky, not unlike how the Story Mode in Time Crisis 4 felt.
With a second player Arcade mode won’t last you too long, leaving you the Story Mode and the other two games included. The arcade version of Time Crisis 4 has Giorgio Bruno and Evan Bernard stopping a bio-terror attack. The cover mechanic and multiple weapons are again in play here and two player same or split screen is supported. I recommend sticking with same screen for cooperative play because a smaller screen size makes seeing enemies more difficult and the experience isn’t as exciting.
Deadstorm Pirates relaxes controls quite a bit and does away with reloading altogether, similar to The Shoot actually. Deadstorm is a fun twist to the otherwise futuristic, teched out Time Crisis series and it also adds a ‘Combined Shot’ feature if you’re playing with two players.
In terms of presentation, Razing Storm obviously looks the best being the newest game, but Time Crisis 4 and Deadstorm Pirates do well for themselves. The audio is fine, mostly the sounds of guns firing of course, but again, that’s what you expect from a shooter on rails collection like this.
To the summary…