A James Bond Japanese.

Time Crisis is probably the arcade that had the most impact on me in the 90s. In general, any race or shooting with a gun attached to the cabinet was impressive at that time, but the fact of having a pedal to stop bending down gave it a very special halo to this work by Namco.

In addition, any arcade in the mid-nineties could not be without this arcade video game, where many people crowded with the dream of becoming, for a few minutes, a Japanese James Bond. As if Rolling Thunder, also from Namco, had switched to rail shooters in response to the 1994 SEGA Virtua Cop. A 1995 classic that needs to be retroanalyzed now.

Take cover and watch out for the soldiers in red

I don't know how many times I played it, but I know that because of my partner Rubén when it came to reviving his PlayStation GunCon, I wanted to remember his arcade, which I was able to enjoy more widely, since, despite buy years later his conversion to the Sony console, I had to play with that.

Time Crisis could not be conceived without a pistol or pedal. This combo was, without a doubt, the biggest attraction of this Namco arcade, differentiating itself from the Operation Wolf and company of the late 80s and early 90s, finding its maximum competitor in the SEGA saga The House of the Dead released in 1996. A duel that would give us multiple deliveries for both titles.

*Going back to the combo, especially the pedal, the peculiarity of its control was that if we did not step on the pedal, we remained under cover. It was a significant change compared to other shooters with pistols, since in the others we were always in the open. This gave him strategy and above all greater immersion than the rest, where it was quite common at that time to see people crouching down, literally, playing Time Crisis, accompanying the movement with the pedal itself. It was impossible to resist. We all did it.*

Graphically it was not the bomb, slightly improving what was seen in the aforementioned 1994 Virtua Cop, but it mattered little. It was a tremendous experience that put us in the shoes of Richard Miller to rescue Rachel, the daughter of the president of "Sercia" (Serbia, but with a changed name). All this in three short and intense acts that took place in a castle that covered almost the entirety of a rocky island.

¿Have you endured well the passage of time?

Yes, if I omit how badly their graphics have aged. For the rest, there are few games that have been able to replicate the true spirit that was asked of an arcade at that time and this was one of them. It is always a good time for a game at Time Crisis, no matter how long it takes. It is timeless.

It wasn't a game packed with secrets like the later SEGA classic, nor did we have to worry about saving civilians (which there wasn't, except for Rachel). For not having, we had no more weapons than a pistol. But at least his charger had infinite bullets ... that had to be recharged by releasing the pedal. It was its dual function, basically: being under cover and replacing the ammunition of the weapon.