Time Crisis Strike Review for iPhone: A Great Way to Play the Arcade Game on Your Phone

Time Crisis Strike Gameplay, Control and Everything Else (4 out of 5)

Namco takes the shooting and docking aspect of the original Time Crisis game and tried to custom fit it for the iPhone’s small screen real estate. To shoot your enemies you tap the screen. To reload your automatic semi-rifle you tilt your iPhone. You also do the same to duck in and avoid enemy bullets. In a nutshell, that is how Namco tried to recreate the Time Crisis experience when playing it in the arcade. This may not be to everyone’s liking but if you decide to install the game on your iPhone, don’t expect it to be any better or at least par with the arcade version. The iPhone and arcade machine’s sizes are enough reason not to do so.

For a game that cost too much, $5.99 (as of this writing), Time Crisis Strike is definitely expensive relative to other cool iPhone games available in the iTunes Apps Store. But that’s the price that we all have to pay for a franchise game. At any rate, the game manages to offer some additional features aside from the three levels consisting of 30 seconds mission levels. There are also the challenge-based mini-games. All five of them, despite being quick mini-games, are not that easy to accomplish.

This led us to another minor flaw of the game: difficulty. Time Crisis Strike for the iPhone despite being a small game is not that easy to beat. In fact, finishing the arcade version is easier to accomplish. Part of the game’s difficulty has to do with the limited screen real estate of the iPhone. Docking completely covers your view of what’s in store for you, or how many enemies in front of you. So, it’s a matter of luck and timing if you want to successfully avoid enemy gun fire and be able to fire back before the enemies shoot you.

What else? On the graphics department, Namco has successfully recreated a game environment that is similar to the arcade version of the game. However, the influx of enemies in the iPhone version is not comparable with that of the arcade version. But generally, the graphics engine has used up all the power of the iPhone’s graphics handling capability. And we could tell more than that.

Overall Review (3 out of 5)

Indeed, Time Crisis Strike for the iPhone is a great game by itself despite the difficulty that you would encounter. It’s a welcome development that the big games we used to play in console, PC and even arcade games are starting to show up in the iPhone apps store. Although most of these games including Time Crisis Strike won’t be able to match their other versions, the fact is the iPhone is becoming a gaming platform of choice of many game developers. Time Crisis Strike failed to mimic its arcade version and failed to give us the same experience, but this is not enough to convince us not to like the game. Neither is it enough to prevent us from recommending it to you. If you don’t mind spending $5.99 dollars, go ahead and install this game on your iPhone.

Photo credit:

Screenshot of Time Crisis Strike by Namco.