Plastic guns and a lot of running

Time Crisis 4

Originally developed as an arcade game that made use of light guns, Time Crisis has persisted with the plastic guns—which “shoot” beams of light at the screen—adapted for use in your living room. This latest iteration, although it was created for the PS3, only serves as evidence that not all gaming devices from the past deserve to be brought back for the next generation. The light-gun setup is clunky and unreliable, and the guns themselves—now sporting a thumbstick and what seems like a dozen buttons in addition to the trigger—defeat the purpose of the original interface, which was point-and-shoot. If Namco Bandai wants to make a light-gun game relevant for today’s gamers, it’ll have to do a better job than this. Rated teen.