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All round, it really is a much more impressive visual experience than ever before, and in fact shows up previous efforts for exactly what they were - i.e.
#CRISIS ZONE ARCADE MACHINES SERIES#
In terms of detail, Crisis Zone is a massive leap forward for a series that has always seemingly been rooted in that hugely outdated angular look of the mid-90s gone are the sparse textures and rudimentary environments, and gone are the poorly detailed and stiff character models, to be replaced by a much more convincing and varied cast of foes, not to mention some huge tanks, helicopters, giant cloaked death robots, jet pack-equipped soliders and the usual array of improbable machines of destruction, armed to the teeth with enough explosive material to flatten London in an hour. Working through a department store or office, seemingly every fixture, every item on the shelves, every pane of glass can be blown to smithereens, while smoke billows from your weapon with every blast to create this cloud of chaos. The single most noticable change to this latest in a long line of arcade ports is the huge improvements to the graphics engine, allowing the player to literally lay waste to almost every object in sight to create the most rampant levels of mess we've witnessed in any game. It really is no more complex than that, but in a way, this decision to take the RSI out of the equation allows you to focus much more on the actual aiming, and in turn allows Namco to really ramp up the number of enemies being thrown at you to even more insane levels than ever before.Īt almost all times Crisis Zone is one of the most chaotic shooters of all time, with so much carnage, destruction and general mayhem occurring that it's got you constantly on the edge and rushing in that feverish way that arcade ports tend to do. There are occasional exceptions to this rule, with the odd blade slicing you close up, or projectile launched in your direction (in which case you lose one of your health slots, of which you have four to begin with, but they increase the more you play it), so death is never far away, but the key with any game like this is repeat play and memorising the sequence and get the hell out of their way before they rip into you. Incredibly unrealistic, and all that, but hey, we're talking about the most over the top game to ever feature in the ageing genre. And in a further twist, Crisis Zone allows you to stand unharmed in a hail of bullets, alerting you to an oncoming threat with a high pitched tone and a big red circle! So, as long as you're alert to these and duck down behind your impregnable riot shield in time (no ducking behind crates and doorways anymore) you'll stay as safe as houses. Not only has it given you a machine gun by default, but it's got unlimited ammo. But believe it or not, Namco evidently thought things should be simpler. As ever, the on rails nature moves you automatically to the next section once you've cleared it, and so on until death or you eventually face the evil tyrant behind all this mayhem. Namco gun games have hardly got a reputation for being the most complex in the known universe: crouch behind cover, pop your head out, kill the bad guys and try to avoid their hail of lead. Frankly the more ludicrous the scenario the better when it comes to these games. Who knows? Or cares? You're shooting a plastic gun at literally hundreds of enemies for fun. Typically, you guide a generic unflappable hero through the Garland Square retail/office complex in a series of mini encounters before eventually duking it out with a maniac who apparently seems hell bent on nuking the capital city for no apparent reason at all, apart from perhaps that he can. It's almost a tradition that Namco wants to uphold to take us back to that bygone era when all gaming stories were this cheese-ridden. Setting the game in modern day London (errr, which bit? Docklands? That's the only vaguely modern bit we can think of) it's got the kind of inane terrorist-based plotline that instantly makes us dissolve into laughter. You might imagine Namco had managed to milk the idea dry by now, but apparently not. Sugary, light, disposable, but oh so addictive. It's gaming's equivalent of the three-minute pop song. Crisis Zone may be one of the dumbest, most ludicrous, over the top games Namco has ever produced, but you can't stop coming back for more. Ever since Taito set the standard with Operation Wolf back in the days when we were still loading games in from cassette we've been strangely drawn to their magnetic charms. No matter how predictable they are, no matter how much things move on there's always been a special place in our hearts for light gun games.